Health Select Committee Inquiry
From Nhs It Info
Contents |
Future Work Programme of the Health Committee (22 Nov 2006)
UK Parliament
http://www.parliament.uk/parliamentary_committees/health_committee/hcpn061122.cfm
"The Committee has decided to undertake the following additional inquiries in 2007: Aspects of IT in the NHS, . . ."
MPs will hold inquiry into £12bn NHS IT plan (28 Nov 2006)
Computer Weekly
"The House of Commons' Health Committee has agreed to hold an inquiry into key facets of the £12.4bn NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) after some MPs expressed concerns that the scheme may be foundering. The decision reverses a resolution taken by the parliamentary committee only weeks ago not to hold an inquiry, and vindicates a campaign led by leading academics, Computer Weekly and MPs. The inquiry, the terms of reference for which will be announced shortly, is expected to involve the committee's members questioning ministers and officials at a series of hearings. MPs on the committee can take in evidence from trust executives who are concerned about the lack of progress in the delivery of core patient systems for hospitals, and from GPs about whether centralised electronic health records will be secure. The committee in October rejected an inquiry partly because some members believed the programme was too complicated to be investigated by non-expert MPs. Its change of heart comes after Computer Weekly provided some committee members with new evidence - including a confidential briefing paper on the NPfIT from directors of informatics at a large NHS trust. The paper expressed profound concerns about some aspects of the NPfIT.
Computer Weekly has also learned that strong support for an inquiry came from Dr Richard Taylor, a former hospital consultant and the only independent MP in the House of Commons. Taylor told Computer Weekly that he was originally not in favour of an inquiry, but changed his mind after an informal briefing by BT, one of the main suppliers to the NPfIT. He said BT's briefing had been so unremittingly positive about the programme that he found it lacked credibility, and this made him wonder whether the programme was as successful as the supplier claimed. It is seven months since 23 academics, supported by this magazine, wrote an open letter to the committee calling on its members to ask the government to commission an independent audit into the national programme. Martyn Thomas, one of the 23 academics who wrote the open letter to the health committee, said, "Speaking on behalf of the 23, we welcome the news that the Health Committee intends to hold an inquiry early in the new year. We intend to submit evidence to the inquiry further supporting our call for a full, independent and open review of the NPfIT."
Opportunity for clarity (28 Nov 2006)
Computer Weekly
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2006/11/28/220171/Opportunity+for+clarity.htm
"We are delighted that the House of Commons Health Committee is going to hold an inquiry into the NHS's £12.4bn National Programme for IT. We have campaigned hard for an inquiry, as have 23 leading academics who wrote an open letter to the committee. At first the committee's members seemed none too enthusiastic about the idea of an inquiry. They were put off a little by the programme's complexity. Since then Computer Weekly has provided information to some of the members on the concerns at trust board level about the way things are going. Now the committee members have realised that they can see the programme from the perspective of doctors and nurses and if the scheme is too difficult for clinicians to understand, then there is something fundamentally wrong with it. Senior IT executives in trusts who have not been able to express opinions publicly will have the opportunity to write to the committee, requesting anonymity, and raising questions they think MPs should ask. The committee will also be taking in papers from specialists. The inquiry will provide a chance for officials to say that the NHS has moved on since the programme was first announced, and concede that it needs to change. The committee could then be a stage to announce changes. We hope that MPs will consider the project's strengths and weaknesses with an open mind, and not be critical or defensive according to party alignments. This is also a chance for officials and ministers to explain how patients will benefit from the enormous public investment in this project, and what lessons have been learned so far. They will, we hope, answer questions clearly and openly - for clarity and openness have been largely missing so far."
We must stop pandering to the NPfIT cash cow (28 Nov 2006)
Computer Weekly
"The missed NHS IT deadline has come as no surprise to those in the IT sector. The NPfIT will never get back on track, and was never on track originally. It breaks every rule of project management, from scoping right through to delivery, and is completely failing to address the requirements of NHS clinicians. The project management team has approached the matter as if they are dealing with a nation of identikits, not individual idiosyncratic patients. No right-thinking manager would attempt to deploy systems on a national basis like this - it makes no sense and simply cannot be achieved. Over £20bn of taxpayers' money has been wasted on a system that was destined to fail. The concept is undoubtedly laudable, but it has been approached from the wrong angle from the outset. Smaller software companies already serving the NHS were not permitted to tender for NPfIT contracts, and those that were awarded them had no healthcare experience. In the event, the larger IT firms actually outsourced to the very companies who had been refused contracts. Further, integrating all the regional systems that were created to comprise the final NPfIT was always going to be an uphill struggle to say the least. The NPfIT is five years overdue - how many more casualties are going to be caused by IT industry fat cats pandering to the cash cow the NPfIT has become?" [Richard Barker, Sovereign Business Integration]
Health select committee to investigate NPfIT (28 Nov 2006)
e-Health Insider
http://www.e-health-insider.com/news/item.cfm?ID=2299
"An inquiry into the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) will be held by the House of Commons’ health select committee, according to a report in Computer Weekly. The committee originally decided not to hold such an inquiry, but are reported to have changed their minds after they were provided with documents from the magazine, including a confidential briefing paper on the NPfIT from directors of informatics at a large NHS trust, which expressed ‘profound concerns about some aspects of the NPfIT’. Dr Richard Taylor, a former hospital consultant and independent MP for Wyre Forest, also gave the inquiry strong support after he had an informal briefing with BT, which ‘had been so unremittingly positive about the programme that he found it lacked credibility, and this made him wonder whether the programme was as successful as the supplier claimed.’ MPs on the committee will now be able to take evidence from trust executives concerned about the lack of progress in the delivery of patient administration systems in hospitals, and from GPs about whether centralised electronic health records will be secure. Martyn Thomas, one of the 23 academics who called for such an inquiry in April, said: “Speaking on behalf of the 23, we welcome the news that the health committee intends to hold an inquiry early in the new year. We intend to submit evidence to the inquiry further supporting our call for a full, independent and open review of the NPfIT.” Richard Granger, chief executive of Connecting for Health, told the Financial Times yesterday that a combination of the NHS’s financial troubles and problems with software means that the installation of new patient administration systems in hospitals is likely to be further delayed."
