Unpublished Concerns Regarding NPfIT
From Nhs It Info
This section of the dossier contains previously-unpublished expressions of concern that we have received from people who have extensive direct knowledge of NPfIT. These expressions are made publicly available here with the explicit permission of their respective authors.
Any other individuals who also feel that they can make informative and constructive contributions to this dossier are welcome to contact us by email. Ideally any such contribution to the dossier will include an identification of its author, but we will when necessary accept contributions that only identify the author's background, without providing an actual name. However, we are not prepared to consider contributions that reach us from anonymous sources.
Contents:
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Three parables of IT and CRS (16 Oct 2006)
"Doctors and nurses can find it hard to make other people understand what they want and need from IT systems to help them in their work. This results in confusion, and delivery of unsuitable or unusable software. I believe this has happened with the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT) Clinical Records System (CRS) in the programme “Connecting for Health”. I think our basic needs are simple: who are our patients, where are our patients, what problems and diagnoses do they have, what are we treating them with, some space for free text, and an ability to print the information. Anything else is a major luxury once these requirements are met. I have written three stories as allegories or parables to help to shed some light on the problems. . ."
Submission to the PAC by Robin Guenier (3 Nov 2006)
"It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT). It is my view, shared by others including many clinicians, that if the NHS is to be properly effective in the 21st Century its information systems must be transformed. So it was excellent news when the Government announced in early 2002 that it was to take the advice of the review it had asked Derek Wanless to undertake and had decided to invest a huge amount of time and effort in an ambitious programme of NHS IT reform. . . . Yet, after four years, it begins to look as if NPfIT may well be heading for failure. There are many signs of this – late deliveries, disappointed users, cost growth, loss of key suppliers, etc. The extraordinary thing is that this is happening largely because the Department of Health has chosen to disregard the clear lessons of earlier project failures and, in particular, the advice of Government and Parliamentary experts. . ."
A Consultant's Eve View (3 Nov 2006)
"I am a Consultant Physician with considerable expertise in clinical systems. I also am an experienced clinical user. I am writing to explain why I have been so disappointed and concerned after my training sessiond on an NPFIT Clinical Records Software system (CRS) featuring a Patient Administration System (PAS) and Orders and Communications. My fear is that should we "go live" with this system, our hospital might close down within hours. . ."
Submission to the PAC by Larry Benjamin (6 Nov 2006)
"I am a consultant ophthalmic surgeon working at Stoke Mandeville Hospital, Aylesbury. I have a long-standing interest in IT and its use in Medicine and although a member of the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, I am writing as an individual and a consultant in the NHS for the last 16 years. . . My worry regarding the implementation of NpfIT is that it has been introduced “backwards”. By this I mean that the national spine and its associated infra-structure has received much attention whilst very little effort has been put into useable local systems for day to day input of clinical data – the very life blood of any clinical system. . ."
Submission to the PAC by John Mason (7 Nov 2006)
"Information Technology in the NHS - What Next? This document is triggered by the Richard Bacon and John Pugh suggestions and is a comment on the present state of IMT in the NHS, with suggested ways forward."
