In Defence of NHS IT

The recent National Audit Office report on the NHS National Programme for IT was a coruscating review of progress made towards better health care information technology in the UK.

The report catalogues an array of problems relating to political interference from central government in long-term projects, poorly designed IT procurement strategies and a reliance on new systems rather than proven technology at the exclusion of the near entirety of the business uses. The biggest headline is the failure to deliver care records to stated timescales at the expense of the patient's needs and demands. Indeed the timetable of delays makes for eye-watering reading to anyone involved or who care about NHS IT as a patient or member of any community.

Amongst the ashes of the report there are seeds of hope for the service. Whilst there is always a tension between the celerity of technology and public sector procurement, with cloud computing the latest migraine-inducing issue for NHS IT managers, the report clarifies a way forward. Rather than being tied to a now outdated plan for digital health records the report specifies the opportunity to introduce flexibility into a national plan. If this pragmatism had been advocated a decade ago many NHS IT projects could have been implemented to deliver the expected outcomes of greater access, security and integrity.