Industry experts call for acute systems of choice
A range of politicians, industry analysts and experts have urged NHS Connecting for Health to use Fujitsu’s exit from the National Programme for IT as an opportunity to introduce acute systems of choice, based on the ASCC catalogue. Fujitsu on Wednesday had its £896m contract as local service provider in the South terminated, after a […]
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NAO says care records service delayed until 2015
‘Widespread concerns’ about NPfIT penalties
In a new survey NHS foundation trusts have reported ‘widespread concerns’ about the limited functionality of key systems from the NHS National Programme for IT. Some foundation trusts (FTs) that have sought to delay taking systems until problems are fixed say they have been told to expect fines running into many millions of pounds. The FTs […]
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MP “looking into” how NAO report was drafted
Commons Public Accounts Committee member and outspoken scrutiniser of the National Programme for IT, Richard Bacon MP, says he is trying to find out what happened during the drafting process of the controversial National Audit Office (NAO) report on the programme. The late-running report was published in June and made no comment on delays in […]
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‘Engage, understand and manage’ says NAO report
More engagement, understanding and better management is needed, if the public sector is to successfully deliver new IT services, according to a new report by the National Audit Office. The NAO’s ‘Delivering successful IT- enabled business change’ report identifies 24 successful public and private sector projects, including health service’s own NHS UK Transplant, which they […]
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LSPs fail ‘acid test’ on PAS deployments
Delivery of the patient administration systems due to form the foundation for future electronic patient records in NHS hospitals has stalled with only a fifth of the systems promised in June actually installed. In June NHS Connecting for Health said that 22 acute NHS trusts would get new PAS systems by the end of October. […]
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iSoft’s £82m upfront cash for existing IT revealed
Upfront payments totalling nearly £82m were made to health IT specialists, iSoft, in a complex deal which gave the company money in advance for existing NHS contracts, it has emerged. Health secretary, Patricia Hewitt, defends the arrangement in a letter to Richard Bacon, Conservative MP and leading member of the Public Accounts Committee who has been […]
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MPs prescribe ‘rescue’ plan for NHS IT project
The government has been urged to rethink its £12.4bn NHS IT project, and replace its current highly centralised national strategy with a more flexible locally-based approach based on standards. Such an overhaul is prescribed as the only way to reduce the risks of the programme, enable useful local clinical systems to be delivered and prevent […]
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Implementation dates for hospitals continue to slip
An investigation by E-Health Insider has found that two-thirds of the 22 NHS acute trusts that were meant to be receiving a replacement patient administration system by the end of October say they will not hit the target. In late June NHS Connecting for Health and its local service providers told Richard Bacon MP, a […]
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Accenture winds down acute hospital trust work
Accenture, the local service provider for the NHS IT programme in the North-east and East of England, is winding down its implementation team working on putting new patient administration system into NHS hospitals. E-Health Insider has been told that the acute implementation team was almost completely disbanded at the beginning of July, with a number […]
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