NHS IT System Condemned

In a jaw-dropping condemnation of the NHS National Programme for IT, the National Audit Office has exposed a white elephant in the final stages of collapse.  In what read as a final pronouncement, the NAO reported that after nine years and £2.7bn, the NHS has failed to deliver its primary aim of an electronic care record for everyone in the country.

The situation looks so dire the system might continue leeching money from the NHS for another decade if the whole scheme and all its software is not seized by state liquidators. The NAO was confident DoH had saved the day. But it had done so by turning the systems architecture on its head. The National Programme had been all but abandoned. The NAO all but called time on it once and for all.

"There is a compelling case for the recently announced Whitehall-wide review to re-evaluate the business case for the Programme to determine what should happen now to safeguard against further loss to public value," said the NAO's Update report on the NHS IT Programme's care records systems, published today.