The director general of NHS IT, Richard Granger, has spoken out against critics of the National Programme for IT, saying that many charges are just “plain wrong” and that a “toxic environment" is in danger of developing. “If we are not very careful”, said Granger in an interview with the Financial Times, “fewer people will be willing to come in [to the public sector] and do the sort of job I am doing, which will result in some serious issues for the country." Granger slammed media criticism for focusing on the problems rather than any of the successes of the programme. “Sometimes you go two steps forward and one step back, and this is a necessary and a good thing,” he said. He accused some critics of having “vested interests". Granger also denied that the programme was being too secretive, saying that he was worried about the effect that missed targets or revision of deadlines would have on the public view of the programme when it is “hugely complex” and “very difficult”. “There will be a major roll out in 2005,” assured Granger. “By June or July you will see hundreds of systems going into hospitals and GP surgeries across the NHS." The decision to start publishing uptime statistics for core services such as N3 was made in anticipation of the Freedom of Information Act in the New Year: “The best way to allay concerns about whether a supplier is performing is to publish what the supplier is doing." Answering concerns over the confidentiality of the Choose and Book service, Granger said that the idea that a patient’s record would be transferred from the GP to the hospital was “completely wrong", and that it was only ever going to be the referral letter. Granger said that flexibility was necessary in a programme the size of NPfIT. “Any change in what was predicted is viewed negatively, rather than as a mature approach to the management of risk," stated Granger.
