Will the national programme pay for contestability?
Perhaps the most intriguing speculation to have emerged in recent weeks is the suggestion that iSOFT, triumphant in three of the four clusters contracts so far announced – the North East, North West and Eastern – is leveraging the economies of scale made possible by initial wins to offer a very low price for the whole of […]
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Granger secures commitment to fund NPfIT
Comment: Jon Hoeksma, E-Health Insider For Richard Granger, NHS IT Director-General, the announcement of the award of three key contracts to deliver the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), provides a vindication of his management of the procurement phase of the programme and hardball negotiation tactics with suppliers on pricing. Although the extra £2.3 billion pledged […]
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SNOMED ‘Highly Unlikely’ to Generate Revenue for NHS
Expected revenues from the NHS’ collaboration on SNOMED Clinical Terms (CT) have not been realised and the financial formula used to calculate them is unlikely to generate any revenues for the service in the future, according to a strategy document commissioned by the NHS Information Authority and seen by E-Health Insider. This is despite the […]
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Budget 2003:Chancellor Stands By Spending Plans
Chancellor Gordon Brown this week reaffirmed public spending plans due to deliver 7.2% growth in NHS spending over the next five years, including unprecedented investment in healthcare IT. Delivering the 2003 Budget, he told the Commons, “We have not been, and will not be, diverted from increasing investment on our health and public services at […]
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Trusts Must Not Stop Local IT Investment – Lord Hunt
NHS trusts must put sustained local investment into their IT to complement investment from the National IT Programme, health minister Lord Hunt told a London conference this week. He said investment from the National Programme will be made “very much around a condition that the NHS locally invests its resources too.” The changes ahead were […]
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Combined Government Gateway Review Due for IT Programme
The National NHS IT Programme is scheduled to be submitted to a combined Government Gateway review by the end of October, with a full business case then due to be submitted to Treasury for approval by November. The latest version of the timetable for the National IT Programme was detailed by Jeremy Thorp, the NHS […]
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No Funding for IT Development Projects
The Department of Health has failed to secure extra funding for a series of development projects that had been thought vital to demonstrate how the latest generation of information technology could be applied to the NHS. The decision suggests that the Treasury and DH do not believe that a further series of demonstrator projects are […]
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DH Presents Blueprint for IT Transformation
A plan for transforming NHS IT is on its way to the Treasury this week. If all goes well, the resources needed to implement its proposals will come on stream in April 2003 and the government wants the new developments in place by the end of 2005. The plan was announced at HC 2002 in […]
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2001: The Year the Money Disappeared
The NHS has stood at the cusp in 2001, its stark failures were laid bare by the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry and Shipman reports, and yet it was also the year in which a re-elected Labour Government pledged unprecedented investment in the service. Though the IT agenda has attracted few headlines, it has permeated both […]
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Wanless on Information Technology
The UK health service has a poor record on the use of information and communication technology and spending in this area will need to grow at a faster rate over the next 20 years to catch up and keep up with other countries, according to the Wanless Report on NHS funding. Most of the headlines […]
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