When did the National Programme for IT in the NHS come to an end? It sounds like a question for a particularly dull pub quiz; but it’s one that might stump even the keenest of healthcare informatics buffs. The coalition government made big announcements cancelling the programme in both 2011 and 2012.

But in reality, a surprising number of its contracts have run or are running their course, even if the company and number of trusts involved, the planned outcome and the basis for payment have changed. This week, EHI News confirmed that the trusts that implemented Cerner Millennium via the programme have now all signed new deals to replace their nationally funded contracts with local ones. So this could be taken as the end of the programme in the capital.

However, as John-Jo Cambell, the chair of the CIO forum for London Cerner trusts points out, an awful lot of work still needs to be done to repatriate data from the BT data centre. So that could be another end point. And in the North, Midlands and East trusts, face a big task to get off their ‘interim’ contracts next year.

In other news, David Kwo, who was very involved in the early days of the national programme in London, and who has a track record of bringing big, American IT systems to England, is returning to the capital to lead IT at a trust that stayed well out of NPfIT: University College London Hospitals. And the NHS has announced plans to transfer the Electronic Staff Record to IBM.

London off NPfIT Cerner contract

London’s trusts running the Cerner Millennium electronic patient record have all signed new deals to replace their nationally funded contracts, with Cerner retaining its hold in the capital.

Kwo back in London to lead EPR at UCLH

Health IT industry veteran David Kwo will lead work on a replacement for University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust’s electronic patient record system.

NHS to switch ESR to IBM in June

The Department of Health has confirmed that the transition to a new electronic staff record system for the NHS in England and Wales will begin in June this year as part of a phased rollout to conclude in November.

Bradford migrates data to BridgeHead VNA

Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has migrated 1.7 million radiology studies to a vendor neutral archive after signing a five-year contract with BridgeHead Software.

Nurse Tech Fund helps Humber go mobile

Humber NHS Foundation Trust has agreed a deal with BT and TotalMobile to provide hospital staff with a system to view patient records on mobile devices.

London trust creates kids' sleep tracker

Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust has launched a new smartphone app that can keep track of the sleep pattern of children with sleeping problems.

So, it was the #leadersdebate on ITV last week and the diary hopes that all readers were glued to their TV / mobile device screens for the big kick-off to the election campaign. (Former) health secretary Jeremy Hunt was certainly up watching the seven party leaders debate the economy, the NHS, immigration and, erm, yoof, and was busily tweeting out all the best moments of David Cameron’s performance.

Hunt was particularly enamoured of Cameron’s desire to see “more doctors with stethoscopes and fewer managers with clip-boards” in the health service. Is this, finally, a definition of the “paperless” NHS we’ve all been hearing so much about for the past couple of years?

PICS of the crop

University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust’s prescribing information and communication system helped it to win EHI’s latest award for ‘promoting patient safety’. Paul Curran reports.

“I would normally say roll-out, but we are talking about the NHS. Nothing rolls, at best it meanders; but on the IT front we need to drive hard to achieve anything.”

“Jeremy Hunt has been clear that he is driven by a transparency agenda. When you’re that enthusiastic about something, it’s easy to lose sight of the major concerns that need to be addressed regarding privacy.”

Dr Beth McCarron-Nash, care.data lead for the British Medical Association, considers why the programme went so very wrong in the second of EHI News’ features reviewing the big healthcare IT initiatives of the coalition government.