Comment / MPs call for e-records funding reappraisal

MPs have called on the Department of Health to consider releasing funds to allow trusts to buy their own care records systems if the number of deployments under the national scheme does not increase over the next six months.

In a report on the NHS National Programme for IT, the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) said that while other parts of the programme were being implemented, recent progress in deploying the care records system was disappointing. There were just six deployments in the first five months of 2008/09.

The programme was not providing value for money because there had been so few deployments of BT’s Millennium system and no deployment of CSC’s Lorenzo system by the end of 2008.

PAC chairman Edward Leigh (pictured above) said: ‘Trusts should not be expected to deploy care records systems that aren’t working properly. If there is no improvement to this situation within six months the Department should consider allowing trusts to apply for funding for alternative systems.’

The report added that estimates of local costs remained unreliable. It also criticised open-ended confidentiality agreements made with CSC, insisting they obstructed parliamentary scrutiny of the Department’s expenditure.

The revised completion date of 2014/15, which was four years later than originally planned, had been set before the termination of Fujitsu’s contract to supply the system to the south of England in May 2008. The MPs added that since arrangements for trusts in this area had yet to be resolved, the forecast completion date must be in doubt.

The Department welcomed the report and insisted costs were controlled because providers were paid only when the service had been successfully delivered.

The NHS Confederation backed the MPs’ analysis. Policy director Nigel Edwards said NHS organisations had been forced to work around the delays by putting alternative IT systems in place.

‘Everyone recognises the potential of the programme and is frustrated at the delays. But we are getting to the point where, having spent so much money in funding the system and keeping it running, the time is quickly approaching to make tough decisions on the future of the project,’ he added.