Choose and Book bill reaches £100m

The government’s e-booking service Choose and Book has cost almost £100m so far, the Department of Health has revealed.

In an answer to a parliamentary question health minister Ben Bradshaw said that total costs to date for the development, delivery and maintenance of the Choose and Book IT system total £98.9m.

The health minister said that amount included £45.1m for the development and deployment of the core system by the supplier under the original core contract worth £64.5m over five years. His written answer states: “It also includes a further £53.8 million for approved additional services and functionality identified in the contract, the costs of which are within the budget for the original Choose and Book business case.”

The five year contract for Choose and Book, worth £64.5 million, was awarded to SchlumbergerSema (since acquired by Atos Origin) in October 2003. The e-booking system was due to be used for all first outpatient appointment booking between GPs and hopsitals by December 2005. Although that original deadline was missed by a huge margin it is understood the company still received the full monthly contracted fee for providing the system.

Since then take-up of Choose and Book has missed a series of other targets including the DH requirement that 90% of referrals for first outpatient apppintments be made through Choose and Book by March 2007.

Take-up is currently around 50% but fears that usage would drop off after the national GP incentive scheme, the directed enhanced servuice for choice and booking, finished at the end of March have so far proved unfounded.

Latest figures seen by EHI Primary Care show that take-up is continuing to rise, allbeit slowly, with a total of 119,985 bookings made during the week ending 20 April compared with 113,958 a month earlier (for the week ending 16 March). Last week also included one day, 14 April, when bookings exceeded 25,000 for the second time ever.