Post by Teddy Bear on Sept 22, 2011 21:59:00 GMT
This news is depressing enough, a £12.7 Billion NHS Computer System set up by Labour has been found to be unfit for purpose and is to be scrapped. TOTAL WASTE!
So why hasn't the BBC put up an article to this effect? They certainly know about it as they even had fat thick lump thug ex Labour Deputy Prime Minister Prescott, who had first ordered this system, and blamed civil servants for the fiasco. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme they had kept ministers in the dark over the ‘unbelievable’ scale of the ‘disaster’.
Clearly no responsibility there
So since the BBC know about it, they must be thinking how to word this article before they post it on the website. How can they blame the Coalition or Conservatives, or else find a scapegoat other than the Labour party.
I'm going to monitor the BBC to see when they finally come out with a story on it, and how they present it.
So why hasn't the BBC put up an article to this effect? They certainly know about it as they even had fat thick lump thug ex Labour Deputy Prime Minister Prescott, who had first ordered this system, and blamed civil servants for the fiasco. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme they had kept ministers in the dark over the ‘unbelievable’ scale of the ‘disaster’.
Clearly no responsibility there
So since the BBC know about it, they must be thinking how to word this article before they post it on the website. How can they blame the Coalition or Conservatives, or else find a scapegoat other than the Labour party.
I'm going to monitor the BBC to see when they finally come out with a story on it, and how they present it.
£12bn NHS computer system is scrapped... and it's all YOUR money that Labour poured down the drain
Sum would pay 60,000 nurses' salaries for a decade
Scheme replaced with cheaper regional alternatives
Decision comes after report said IT system was not fit for the NHS
By Daniel Martin
Ministers are to axe Labour’s disastrous £12billion NHS computer scheme.
The Coalition will today announce it is putting a halt to years of scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money on a system that never worked.
It will cut its losses and ‘urgently’ dismantle the National Programme for IT – a monument to Whitehall folly during Labour’s 13 years in power.
The biggest civilian IT project of its kind in the world, it has already squandered at least £12.7billion. Some estimates put the cost far higher.
Analysts say the sum would have paid the salaries of more than 60,000 nurses for a decade.
It comes as Chancellor George Osborne has been warned he faces a £12billion black hole in his deficit reduction plan – the same amount as that lost to the NHS scheme.
Following an official review, the ‘one size fits all’ IT project will be replaced by much cheaper regional initiatives, with hospitals and GPs choosing the IT system they need.
The announcement follows strong criticism from MPs who accused Labour of wasting a further £500million of taxpayers’ money on a failed bid to set up a network of regional Fire Brigade control centres.
John Prescott, who as Deputy Prime Minister ordered that scheme, blamed civil servants for the fiasco. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme they had kept ministers in the dark over the ‘unbelievable’ scale of the ‘disaster’.
And a new national watchdog will be established to ensure such huge sums can never again be thrown away on uncosted IT projects.
Labour’s National Programme for IT included a range of schemes to modernise the Health Service, including a national email system and the ability to transfer X-rays and prescriptions electronically.
It also included the ‘electronic care record’, a process allowing hospitals and surgeries to share patients’ medical information, but which was criticised by the British Medical Association for putting privacy at risk.
The decision to accelerate the dismantling of the scheme has been made by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
It follows new advice produced by the Major Projects Authority, set up by the Coalition to review Labour’s big financial commitments to see if they provide value for money.
The authority said the IT scheme, set up in 2002, is not fit to provide services to the NHS – which as part of austerity measures has to make savings of £20billion by 2014/15.
It concluded: ‘There can be no confidence that the programme has delivered or can be delivered as originally conceived.’
The report, seen by the Mail, recommends the Government should ‘dismember the programme and reconstitute it under new management and organisation arrangements’.
The NHS computer scheme will go down as one of the most egregious examples of Labour's incompetence and waste
It concluded: ‘The project has not delivered in line with the original intent as targets on dates, functionality, usage and levels of benefit have been delayed and reduced.
‘It is not possible to identify a documented business case for the whole of the programme.Unless the work is refocused it is hard to see how the perception can ever be shifted from the faults of the past and allowed to progress effectively to support the delivery of effective healthcare.’
Mr Lansley said: ‘Labour’s IT programme let down the NHS and wasted taxpayers’ money by imposing a top-down IT system on the local NHS, which didn’t fit their needs.
‘We will be moving to an innovative new system driven by local decision-making. This is the only way to make sure we get value for money from IT systems that better meet the needs of a modernised NHS.’
Mr Maude, who is in charge of Government procurement, will chair a new ‘oversight committee’ working to ensure that best value for taxpayers is gained from all contracts.
As part of the axing of the IT scheme, the board which runs the project will be scrapped. In future, the NHS will be able to buy IT systems locally, without a national system being imposed centrally. Trusts will be able to share patient information if they wish to do so.
Earlier this year, the powerful Commons public accounts committee slammed Labour’s NHS IT programme as ‘unworkable’. Its report said that despite the huge cost, it had ‘proved beyond the capacity of the Department to deliver, and the Department is no longer delivering a universal system’.
And in May, the National Audit Office criticised the project for being poor value for money, patchy and long overdue.
When the IT scheme was launched, it had a budget of £6.2billion. The NAO later said the cost had soared to £12.7billion, adding: ‘There remains some uncertainty around estimates of costs.’
Sum would pay 60,000 nurses' salaries for a decade
Scheme replaced with cheaper regional alternatives
Decision comes after report said IT system was not fit for the NHS
By Daniel Martin
Ministers are to axe Labour’s disastrous £12billion NHS computer scheme.
The Coalition will today announce it is putting a halt to years of scandalous waste of taxpayers’ money on a system that never worked.
It will cut its losses and ‘urgently’ dismantle the National Programme for IT – a monument to Whitehall folly during Labour’s 13 years in power.
The biggest civilian IT project of its kind in the world, it has already squandered at least £12.7billion. Some estimates put the cost far higher.
Analysts say the sum would have paid the salaries of more than 60,000 nurses for a decade.
It comes as Chancellor George Osborne has been warned he faces a £12billion black hole in his deficit reduction plan – the same amount as that lost to the NHS scheme.
Following an official review, the ‘one size fits all’ IT project will be replaced by much cheaper regional initiatives, with hospitals and GPs choosing the IT system they need.
The announcement follows strong criticism from MPs who accused Labour of wasting a further £500million of taxpayers’ money on a failed bid to set up a network of regional Fire Brigade control centres.
John Prescott, who as Deputy Prime Minister ordered that scheme, blamed civil servants for the fiasco. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme they had kept ministers in the dark over the ‘unbelievable’ scale of the ‘disaster’.
And a new national watchdog will be established to ensure such huge sums can never again be thrown away on uncosted IT projects.
Labour’s National Programme for IT included a range of schemes to modernise the Health Service, including a national email system and the ability to transfer X-rays and prescriptions electronically.
It also included the ‘electronic care record’, a process allowing hospitals and surgeries to share patients’ medical information, but which was criticised by the British Medical Association for putting privacy at risk.
The decision to accelerate the dismantling of the scheme has been made by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley and Francis Maude, the Minister for the Cabinet Office.
It follows new advice produced by the Major Projects Authority, set up by the Coalition to review Labour’s big financial commitments to see if they provide value for money.
The authority said the IT scheme, set up in 2002, is not fit to provide services to the NHS – which as part of austerity measures has to make savings of £20billion by 2014/15.
It concluded: ‘There can be no confidence that the programme has delivered or can be delivered as originally conceived.’
The report, seen by the Mail, recommends the Government should ‘dismember the programme and reconstitute it under new management and organisation arrangements’.
The NHS computer scheme will go down as one of the most egregious examples of Labour's incompetence and waste
It concluded: ‘The project has not delivered in line with the original intent as targets on dates, functionality, usage and levels of benefit have been delayed and reduced.
‘It is not possible to identify a documented business case for the whole of the programme.Unless the work is refocused it is hard to see how the perception can ever be shifted from the faults of the past and allowed to progress effectively to support the delivery of effective healthcare.’
Mr Lansley said: ‘Labour’s IT programme let down the NHS and wasted taxpayers’ money by imposing a top-down IT system on the local NHS, which didn’t fit their needs.
‘We will be moving to an innovative new system driven by local decision-making. This is the only way to make sure we get value for money from IT systems that better meet the needs of a modernised NHS.’
Mr Maude, who is in charge of Government procurement, will chair a new ‘oversight committee’ working to ensure that best value for taxpayers is gained from all contracts.
As part of the axing of the IT scheme, the board which runs the project will be scrapped. In future, the NHS will be able to buy IT systems locally, without a national system being imposed centrally. Trusts will be able to share patient information if they wish to do so.
Earlier this year, the powerful Commons public accounts committee slammed Labour’s NHS IT programme as ‘unworkable’. Its report said that despite the huge cost, it had ‘proved beyond the capacity of the Department to deliver, and the Department is no longer delivering a universal system’.
And in May, the National Audit Office criticised the project for being poor value for money, patchy and long overdue.
When the IT scheme was launched, it had a budget of £6.2billion. The NAO later said the cost had soared to £12.7billion, adding: ‘There remains some uncertainty around estimates of costs.’