Lack of NPfIT involvement concerns nurses
Two leading nurses have expressed deep concern at the lack of involvement of the nursing community in the design of and preparation for the National Programme for IT. Professor Dame June Clark, chair of the Royal College of Nursing Information in Nursing Forum, and Richard Hayward, chair of the British Computer Society health informatics (nursing) […]
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MP quizzes Blair on national programme money
An opposition MP has asked for Prime Minister Tony Blair’s personal assurance that public money has not been given to companies involved in the National Programme for IT that have not delivered, naming iSoft as an example. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Question Time, Richard Bacon, Conservative MP for South Norfolk, said: “Would the Prime Minister […]
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NPfIT scrutinised by Public Accounts Committee
The Public Accounts Committee hearing into the NHS National Programme for IT yesterday heard that the £12.4bn programme is largely on track, apart from its central component, the NHS Care Records Service, which is intended to deliver rich local clinical systems and a national database of summary records. Just 12 acute trusts have so far received […]
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BT said to be considering iSoft bid
BT was reported at the weekend to be drawing up plans to bid for iSoft, the troubled health software company at the centre of the NHS Connecting for Health IT programme. The Sunday Times yesterday reported that BT, which is the largest single contractor in the £12.4bn NHS IT programme, was weighing a possible bid […]
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Healthy optimism?
E-Health Insider editor Jon Hoeksma looks in detail at the NAO report into NPfIT’s progress, and how far it covers clinicians’ concerns.
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NAO gives positive account of NHS CfH
According to the eagerly-awaited National Audit Office report published today the DH and NHS Connecting for Health, the agency responsible for the NHS IT project, have “made substantial progress” but the project remains very much a work in progress and it is too early to judge success. The report confirms that areas of the programme […]
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Taskforce announced to speed up NCRS
The Department of Health is setting up a taskforce to speed up implementation of the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS) and will announce a start date for pilot projects for the summary record soon, GPs’ representatives heard. Health minister Lord Warner told the national local medical committees’ conference about plans to speed up delivery of […]
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Granger: bricks of the digital NHS coming together
The pace of delivery of new IT systems to the hospital sector has been "disappointing", says NHS IT director general Richard Granger NHS IT director but he says the bricks that will build a digital NHS are slowly coming together. In an interview given to E-Health Insider in the run-up to the publication of the NAO report […]
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NAO says out-of-hours management information poor
Management information on out-of-hours services is poor, caused partly by problems with IT systems and compounded by inadequate telephone systems in some areas, the National Audit Office (NAO) has reported. In its 48 page review of how new arrangements for out-of-hours care have worked since the vast majority of GPs opted out in 2004, The Provision […]
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NAO report will criticise CfH’s failure to win NHS support
The head of the National Audit Office has confirmed that the public watchdog’s long awaited report into the £6.2 billion NHS National Programme for IT will be critical of the programme’s failure to secure the support of the eventual end users. According to a transcript of a Public Accounts Committee from last month, John Bourn, […]
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