Planning Blight Accusation For IT Programme

Over 300 IT suppliers and would-be suppliers to the NHS packed the QE2 Conference Centre in London last week for an update on the National IT Programme – but they found hard news of progress thin on the ground.

BBC science correspondent, Fergus Walsh, who chaired the event, conveyed the opinion of a participant who had told him the programme had achieved only “planning blight and market slowdown”. Was it all jam tomorrow? Mr Walsh asked the Department of Health’s director of research, information and analysis, Sir John Pattison.

He replied that the department had recognised the dangers of a slowdown. “We tried very hard from the start to persuade people to keep planning and investing. There are two groups of people we see. Those who come with a fear that we are going to slow them down and a determination that we should not. Then there’s another group, who don’t come to see us, who are sitting back and waiting and, in spite of all our cajoling and rhetoric, it’s proving very difficult to change that,” said Sir John.

Would the incoming director general of the programme, Richard Granger, slow things down even more? Sir John said that when the department was going through the selection process each one of the candidates for the job had all the information on the strategic direction. He had no reason to believe there was doubt about the principles of that strategic direction.

”If you ask me for a reassurance that every detail will stay the same, I think you wouldn’t believe me if I said that was the case. If we’ve got the right individual it would be surprising if he did not look at every aspect of this,” said Sir John

Mr Granger was not there to give a definitive answer, however. Sir John told the meeting he had insisted that the new director general should take a break between a very demanding job at Deloitte Consulting and his new role in charge of the national programme.

In his address to the conference, Sir John, recorded some of the achievements of the programme:
• 95.5% of hospital consultants had been equipped with a desktop PC and access to e-mail by the end of September;
• An e-booking information brokering service live since 12 September;
• A full pilot on the health records infrastructure ready to start in mid-October;
• Gateway 1 and 2 reviews due for the integrated care record service proposals due at the end of October and a Gateway 2 review for e-booking plans in early November.

He also pointed to the “arcane, but critical” achievement of securing inclusion of the programme in the FYO3 planning process. This effectively embeds the programme into the NHS planning framework.

“It really begins to indicate to those out there in the service what it is that the performance and planning framework requires them to do,” explained Sir John.

Among other speakers, Jeremy Thorp, NHS Information Authority director of development (programme and service delivery) outlined the phasing plans for the programme which are discussed more fully in E-Health Insider’s exclusive interview with Mr Thorp.

NHSIA head of patients and citizens relations, Marlene Winfield, reminded the meeting that the government had promised patients more control of their own care; more choice of doctors, hospitals and treatments; more say in how the NHS is run; safe, high quality care; training and support for self-care and access to health records.

Implications for information services were that they should:
• Feel and be trustworthy;
• Always there when needed
• Be interoperable
• Be easy
• Start where patients are and take them to where they want to go.