Health check is vital for success of NHS IT

摘要

It is nearly three years since the world's largest civil IT programme - to modernise the NHS - was launched, and there seem to be more uncertainties now than there were at its outset. It is time for an independent audit of the programme, similar to that carried out in 1999 on a complex and troubled project to deliver new air traffic control systems at Swanwick in Hampshire. That audit was carried out by consultancy Arthur D Little. It was ruthlessly objective and played a crucial part in the project's eventual success. A similar audit on the national programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) would complement work done by public spending watchdog the National Audit Office.