Gillian Braunold, clinical director for the NHS Summary Care Record Programme, argues that NHS electronic records protect patients

Gillian Braunold, clinical director for the NHS Summary Care Record Programme, claims in this Guardian article that NHS electronic records protect patients. Well she would, wouldn't she?

If you read the Comments beneath the article I think you will gain a truer grasp of the real drivers behind this monumentally expensive Connecting for Health project.

And please read my blog post from last year about government plans to sell patient records to insurance companies and 'research organisations', aka drug companies.

British Medical Association criticises the "breakneck speed" at which NHS patient database of Summary Care Records is being set up.

BBC News reports unease among doctors at this fast-developing IT project, amid security fears and other concerns.

Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA, has said: "Patients' right to opt out is crucial, and it is extremely alarming that records are apparently being created without them being aware of it.

"If the process continues to be rushed, not only will the rights of patients be damaged, but the limited confidence of the public and the medical profession in NHS IT will be further eroded."

I expressed my own concerns about this in an earlier post on this blog. Government databases have a notorious record of insecurity.

Is the Government trying to do a quick fix stitch-up with NHS IT service before the election?

Well I believe it is. - Yesterday in the post I received a letter and a booklet from the NHS, explaining about a new wheeze they intend to set in place. It's called the NHS Summary Care Record. They want to hold on the internet a central database of Summary Care Records (SCRs) for NHS patients. See http://www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/about .

The letter and booklet explain over and over and over again that if you are in agreement with having your records on the internet that you need to do nothing. There's less information about what to do if, like me, you don't trust the security of sensitive personal details being put onto the internet.

If you don't want your health records to be put onto the internet, given the government's deplorable history of lax security of personal data, then you can ring your GP surgery and make your wishes known, or you can download a form from that http://www.nhscarerecords.nhs.uk/about website and fill it in and post it.

This article on BBC News questions the Conservative Party's claim that the "government is trying to fix a quick deal with suppliers for its controversial £12.7bn NHS IT programme ahead of the next General Election". "Industry insiders and the Conservative Party allege the deals, which would be in place by the end of March, would "tie the hands" of whoever forms the next government."

"Shadow health minister Stephen O'Brien told File on 4 that Whitehall is trying to reset these contracts within the next four weeks, which could make it harder for whoever forms the next administration to cancel them."

You may like to listen to File on 4 tonight for further insight and information about this matter.

File on 4 is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday, 2 March 2010, at 2000 GMT, repeated Sunday, 7 March, at 1700 GMT. You can listen via the BBC iPlayer or download the podcast.

Computerised NHS records system has been criticised by the boss of the Royal Free Hospital in London, who said it had caused "heartache and hard work"

NHS computerised records scheme 'caused heartache', says hospital boss
article in the Telegraph

Extract:

"Andrew Way, the chief executive of the hospital, said problems with the e-records scheme had cost his trust £10 million and meant fewer patients could be seen.

The hospital had to employ an additional 40 administrative staff just to handle the extra workload, he added.

Under the scheme, which is one component of the NHS's much-criticised £12.7 billion IT program, England's 50 million patient records in are due to be computerised on a secure database by 2014, four years later than originally planned."

Richard Granger, the chief executive of Connecting for Health, the over-budget NHS IT project, has said he will leave his post in October.

Anger as best paid civil servant goes - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"Britain's best-paid civil servant is to quit as the head of NHS information technology, claiming the new, accident-prone computer system is on track.

Richard Granger, the chief executive of Connecting for Health, said he would leave the post, and its £290,000-a-year salary, in October. "There is no doubt about the programme's achievability," said Mr Granger, who took up the role in October 2002. "Most of the building blocks are now in place."

Karen Jennings, the head of health at Unison, the NHS's biggest trade union, said Mr Granger's optimism was at odds with the views of the "majority of NHS staff".

She said: "Technically... things are finally coming together. But lessons must be learned from the way these over-ambitious, big-bang IT projects have been brought in late and so over-budget.""

£12 billion NHS IT project is a colossal financial fiasco

The sickening £12 billion NHS fiasco - Telegraph (article by Richard Bacon, MP)

Extracts:

"The project is costing more than £12 billion, enough to pay for 60,000 nurses for 10 years, or for Britain's participation in Iraq and Afghanistan twice over."

"Today, Parliament's spending watchdog publishes a report on this multi-billion-pound fiasco, which concludes: "At the present rate of progress, it is unlikely that significant clinical benefits will be delivered by the end of the contract period." The whole project has been an object lesson in how not do it. There are some basic rules of thumb that apply to successful IT projects: start small, do it in stages, learn from your mistakes, resist the grand vision thing, scale up only when you know what you are doing, and - above all - talk to the people who will use it."

Just think how much more useful it would have been to spend this wasted money on more nurses instead - and more cleaners for Britain's dirty hospitals...)o:


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NHS seeks rival IT firms as trusts lose faith in iSoft

NHS seeks rival IT firms as trusts lose faith in iSoft - Guardian article.

Extract:

"The NHS will start recruiting alternative software suppliers to its troubled £6.2bn IT upgrade project this month, in a move which could see the government's vision for a single IT system for the health service in England unravelling.

The move is a tacit admission that a fully integrated IT system may never be completed. "

Well that's a bit of good news...

IT expert raises concerns about NHS IT project - UK

IT expert raises concerns about NHS IT project

Some extracts from the report:

"Professor Martyn Thomas of Oxford said that glitches in booking appointments for patients in some hospitals using the system were not fully addressed before the next phase of the scheme was embarked on."

"The IT project is so big, that if it went completely wrong, it poses the danger of "wrecking the NHS", Professor Thomas added."

"The man in charge of the project, 42-year-old Richard Granger, failed his computer studies course at Bristol University, it recently emerged."

What a colossal, risky, grandiose waste of time and public money this unnecessary and largely unwanted exercise in folly is!

NHS computer chief 'failed IT course'

Currently the NHS IT project, the largest civilian IT project in the world, is over-budget, behind schedule and already rife with glitches and malfunctions. Do you think this could be connected to the fact that the NHS computer chief 'failed IT course'? (He is currently the highest paid civil servant in Britain.)