NHS staff unconvinced by new IT system- Annette Brooke MP

12.42.05pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 16th Jun 2006

Local MP Annette Brooke responded to the National Audit Office report on the NHS IT system today:

"The National Programme for IT, the most ambitious and expensive healthcare IT project ever undertaken, must not be allowed to go the way of so many other ill-fated government IT projects.

"If this project is to succeed, it not only has to be delivered on time and to budget, but also win the hearts and minds of the staff who work daily in the NHS. This is not happening at the moment. Many staff, including GPs, are alarmed and dispirited by having the new systems imposed by diktat from above. They are also often confused about what the new systems are going to do and when.

"At the moment the jury is out. But today's report makes worrying reading. We now know for the first time that the £6.2 billion announced as the cost of the project over ten years is wrong. NAO analysis indicates that this is only half the story and that a figure of £12.4 billion is nearer the mark. And the NHS Care Records Service, making information about patients available nationally to clinicians, will be rolled out in GPs' surgeries two years late.

"We are only a third of the way through the life of the contracts, to 2013-14, but already the signs are ominous."

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

National Audit Office report: The National Programme for IT in the NHS

Annette Brooke MP is a member of the Public Accounts Committee