Andrew Selous
From Nhs It Info
(South West Bedfordshire, Conservative)
House of Commons Debate (8 Jun 2005)
"In the final moments available will the Minister deal with the cost overruns of NHS Connecting for Health, which could be as high as £25 billion and may come from primary care?"
Westminster Hall Debate (9 Jun 2005)
"The Government's national programme for information technology—I understand that it has been renamed NHS Connecting for Health—is budgeted by them to cost £6.2 billion. It is of great concern that there have been suggestions that that is a significant underestimate and that the true cost could be between £18.6 billion and £31 billion. Where will the extra £12 billion—or, possibly, £25 billion—budget overrun come from? My understanding is that it will be clawed back from the primary care trusts and from hospital trusts generally. I speak as a former member of the Select Committee on Work and Pensions, which is relevant because the Child Support Agency has been trying for five or six years to get a new computer system up and running. There have been horrendous cost overruns and much suffering to our constituents as a result. Will the choose and book system still be operational by December 2005, as the Government have promised? Why is it necessary? Why is it so prescriptive? Why, for instance, will a GP have to prescribe two private sector options? Why not let the GP decide where the best places are locally to send local patients? Has there been a proper gateway review process on the massive amount of spending on IT? . . . Will the Minister give a reassurance that in the typical 10-minute GP consultation the national programme for information technology and choose and book will not be so onerous that more time is spent looking at a computer screen than dealing with the patient? If the cost overruns are as significant as we have been led to believe, as has so sadly happened on many Government IT projects, where will the extra money come from?"
