The government’s chief information officer has praised IT systems in the health sector but has highlighted the need to “drive value out of IT investments” throughout the recession.
The comments come in the government’s latest Transformational Government progress report.
In a year when the government spent £13.7 billion on IT, the report says the recession means that there will need to be “even more focus on driving value out of the IT investments we make.”
The report says this must be based on three main priorities: “putting the citizen at the heart of what we do”, “shared services” and “professionalising IT-enabled business change."
The report points to savings including £50m at the Department for Work and Pensions using shared services, with a total of £100m expected by the end of 2008/09.
In the government’s third annual assessment of its own IT investments, the government’s CIO, John Suffolk, applauds systems including PACS, Choose and Book and GP2GP.
He says: “PACS helps patients to be assessed and treated more efficiently by supporting clinicians in providing the best possible diagnosis.”
He also says that more than half of outpatient appointment referrals from GPs are now arranged using Choose and Book, with the number of bookings made using the system doubling over the past year to more than 12m.
However, the report shies away from the troubled subject of the National Programme for IT in the NHS. No mention is made of the delays, changes in key contractors or implementation problems experienced in the hospital sector.
The report states: “The National Programme for Information Technology… is already delivering new systems and applications to hospitals and GP practices to provide improved services and safer care for patients.”
The report also states the need for expansion on the government’s use of open source as well as the introduction of user focused web 2.0 tools and technologies.
At the launch of the report, Tom Watson, the minister for digital innovation, claimed that use of information technology will save £35 billion in two years by improving efficiency, and said public sector reform will help Britain meet the challenges involved in overcoming the recession.
He added that the government has already achieved £26.5 billion of efficiency savings through the transformation of the public sector, underpinned by technology.
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