The project proved too expensive
Plans have been scrapped to supply the NHS with a digital national patient record system.
Health secretary Andrew Lansley announced that he is axing the £12.7 billion scheme instigated by Labour.
The system was designed to provide all NHS practitioners with instant access to patient notes, appoitments and histories, all of which would save time and money.
A Department of Health Source said: It was meant to be a ver helpful thing for NHS staff and patients but instead has become this amazingly top-heavy, hideously expensive programmer. The problem is, it didn't deliver."
“The problems encountered by the National IT Programme all stem from the huge Luddite software developers chosen by Labour to deliver the scheme. If the project had been broken down into much smaller parts in the first placed, properly managed and farmed out to smaller, more agile, software development firms then the project could have been a great success,” said Duane Jackson, who created and launched KashFlow which is Britain’s best-selling cloud-based accountancy package six years ago.
Mr Jackson, who grew up in children’s homes, taught himself IT technology after being excluded from school at the age of 15.
“Changing technology and changes to project scope are common place. Software development methodologies have evolved over the years to cope with this. The problem is that the various large companies involved with this project over the years don’t use these development techniques,” he said.
The Cabinet Office's major projects authority assessed the scheme and advised the Health Minister of its destruction. Its conclusion was: "There can be no confidence that the programme has delivered or can be delivered as originally conceived, dismember the programme and reconstitute it under new management and organisation arrangements.”
NHS care providers such as hospitals and GP surgeries will now create their own IT deals locally and regionally and be responsible individually for securing the best deals available.