Tola Sargeant
UK's healthcare programme passes its check-up
The UK government-spending watchdog, the National Audit Office (NAO), published its long-awaited report into England's multi-billion pound National Programme for IT (NpfIT) in the NHS last Friday. The NAO found that the UK Department of Health and NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CFH), the government agency in charge of NPfIT, have made substantial progress with the programme, which is overhauling the NHS's IT infrastructure. It singles out a number of areas for praise including the swift procurement process, the money saved by central procurement and the competitive tendering process used, the innovative terms and conditions in the supplier contracts, the intrusive management of the supply chain and the tight change-control mechanisms.However, the report also concludes that the successful implementation of the programme continues to represent significant challenges for the DoH and NHS CFH. The NAO pinpoints three key areas where this is the case:- Ensuring that the IT suppliers continue to deliver systems that meet the needs of the NHS, and to agreed timescales without further slippage
- Ensuring that NHS organisations can and do fully play their part in implementing the Programme's systems
- Winning the support of NHS staff and the public in making the best use of the systems to improve services.
