Expert warns £20bn NHS computer programme 'won't work'

13 April 2012

The NHS's £20billion computer programme is at the centre of fresh controversy after one of its main suppliers warned that it "is not going to work".

A senior executive at technology giant Fujitsu said the troubled project - the biggest civilian programme of its kind in the world - was also in danger of becoming a "camel" rather than a "racehorse".

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In a damning indictment of the scheme, Andrew Rollerson, a senior healthcare consultant at the firm, said: "What we are trying to do is run an enormous programme with the techniques that we are absolutely familiar with for running small projects.

"And it isn't working. And it isn't going to work."

He added the idea that the IT project - which aims to provide electronic health records for 50 million people - will transform patient care could not be "further from the truth".

Mr Rollerson's comments are the latest blow to the project which has been hit by a series of major setbacks since its introduction.

Fujitsu is one of the project's main IT suppliers with an £896million contract which covers the South of England.

According to magazine Computer Weekly, Mr Rollerson told a conference of IT executives last week there was a "gradual coming apart of what we are doing on the ground because we are desperate to get something in and make it work, versus what the programme really ought to be trying to achieve."

He added: "There is a belief that the National Programme is somehow going to propel transformation in the NHS simply by delivering an IT system.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. A vacuum, a chasm is opening up. It was always there."

Mr Rollerson added that there was a concern among IT suppliers that the they would end up deliver "a camel, and not the racehorse that we might try to produce."

The Fujitsu executive went on to deliver an extraordinary slide-show presentation which included images of a desert island under the heading "Lost?", a sinking ship and a man balancing on a tight rope.

At one point, his presentation said: "The visionary leadership is still missing."

Mr Rollerson added: "The more pressure we come under, both as suppliers and on the NHS side, the more we are reverting to a very sort of narrowly focused IT-oriented behaviour. This is not a good sign for the programme."

Senior health officials have already had to scale back the project after admitting it is "underfunded and over ambitious".

Doctors leaders and senior academics have also raised major concerns about the plans.

Some trusts are so unhappy with the delays that they are to buy software from companies outside the national project.

In a major u-turn, ministers have also been forced to allow patients to opt-out of the scheme following public concern about their medical records being freely available.

MPs on the Health Select Committee has begun an inquiry into the scheme and Labour insiders say Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has been ordered by Tony Blair to explain how the project has gone wrong.

But Ian Lamb, NHS account director at Fujitsu, told Computer Weekly: "We refute any inference that has been drawn to the effect that Fujitsu in any way questions the success of the National Programme."

He went on claim Mr Rollerson's comments had been "misinterpreted".

A Department of Health spokesman added: "David Nicholson, the Chief Executive of the NHS, has clearly said that he is fully committed to the National Programme for IT as it is a necessary part of modern health service, fit for the 21st century.

"He sees this as one of his key strategic priorities as it is key to the successful delivery of patient-centred care."

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