Mixed feelings on NPfIT in primary care, poll shows

Only one in four GPs feel favourably about the National Programme for IT although the overwhelming majority rate NPfIT as an important priority, according to Connecting for Health’s latest poll of opinion among doctors, nurses, NHS managers and IM&T staff.

GPs felt substantially less favourable than hospital doctors, with 25% of GPs liking what they had seen so far compared with 46% of hospital doctors.

MORI, which conducted the telephone survey of 1197 NHS staff between January and February this year, believe Choose and Book may be to blame for the lack of enthusiasm from GPs.

However, although less enthusiastic than colleagues in secondary care GPs and practice nurses were more confident about their ability to implement the programme. A total of 38% of GPs polled reckoned it would be fairly easy or easy to implement NPfIT in their own practices compared with 24% of hospital doctors. Similarly 41% of practice nurses thought it would be fairly easy or easy to implement in their own organisations compared to 25% of hospital nurses.

The survey found that the overwhelming majority of NHS staff rate the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) as an important priority although one in four doctors and one in three nurses have still never heard of it.

The survey found that awareness and attitudes to NPfIT were broadly similar to when a first survey was conducted in summer 2005 although general NHS managers and IM&T managers are less positive than they were in 2005.

Although awareness was generally similar to last year across NHS staff as a whole, the survey found that, compared with last year, familiarity with NPfIT had fallen by 14 percentage points to 31% among practice managers and hospital administrators and surprisingly by seven points to 91% among IM&T managers.

Knowledge varies across the country with all IM&T managers in the North East cluster saying they knew “ a fair amount”, compared to 91% overall, and more than half of doctors in the Southern cluster claiming a similar knowledge level compared to 35% overall.

MORI said that NHS staff had faced a “challenging environment” since its last poll with large scale NHS reorganisation and the impact of financial deficits to cope with.

It commented: “In this problematic environment, it could be expected that the attitudes of NHS staff towards NPfIT, a large and challenging outsourced IT project, would show

signs of deterioration. However, the programme continues to receive high levels of support among frontline as well as managerial staff, and there have been few changes in perceptions of and attitudes towards NPfIT since the first wave of the research.”

It adds: “However as in 2005, all staff groups are much more favourable towards the future aims of the programme than its current form.”

Only three in ten doctors felt new technology was being used well in the NHS with doctors in the North East cluster the least convinced with only 10% of doctors there believing IT was being well used.

The impact of the internal NHS publicity campaign about the NHS Care Records Service appears not have been as widely felt as Connecting for Health might have hoped.

The survey found that staff groups who said they were more likely to use the NHS Care Records Service, such as doctors, nurses and practices managers, were least familiar with it.

Choose and Book in contrast was very familiar in primary care with 92% of GPs citing they knew at least a fair amount about it compared with 56% of hospital doctors. Personal experience of using Choose and Book had also increased significantly among some staff groups with almost half of practice managers and administrators stating they had experience of using it, an increase of 23%. A total of 74% of GPs predict that they will use Choose and Book a fair amount in future despite the fact 61% of GPs felt unfavourable towards it, compared with 27% of hospital doctors.

There are high scores for other NPfIT services that are likely to be best well received in primary care such as the electronic prescription service which 85% of GPs predict that they will use in future.

The challenge to provide information about NPfIT and involve staff in its implementation appears greatest among nurses. Four in five nurses said they had received none or not much information about NPfIT and only 13% said they had been involved in implementation. Overall the survey found there was no significant change in the amount of information NHS staff have seen or heard since last year.

The full results of the poll can be downloaded here