The rate at which electronic care records systems are being put in place across the NHS under the National Programme for IT is falling far below expectations, and the core aim – that every patient should have an electronic care record – will not now be achieved, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report.
Even where systems had been delivered, they were “not yet able to do everything that the Department of Health intended”, especially in acute Trusts, while the number of systems to be delivered through the Programme had been significantly reduced, “without a commensurate reduction in the cost”. “The National Programme for IT in the NHS: an update on the delivery of care record systems” concludes that the £2.7 billion spent so far on care records systems “does not represent value for money”. Nor, “based on performance so far”, does the NAO believe there are “grounds for confidence that the remaining planned spending of £4.3 bn on care records systems will be any different”. Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said the Programme was “yet another example of a department fundamentally underestimating the scale and complexity of a major IT-enabled change programme”.
