A US company contracted to provide IT technology for the National Health Service is set to receive a £2 billion extension despite the failed project being abandoned.Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) has reportedly informed Wall Street that it expects its contract to provide electronic patient records across the NHS to be extended.

Taxpayers are now facing an estimated £2 billion bill, despite the company already failing to deliver a fully functional version of its software, The Times reported.

The £11.4 billion National Programme for IT, set up in 2002 by bliar, was at the time spun as the world’s biggest civilian computerisation project.

It aimed to give doctors instant access to patient records wherever they were being treated and CSC had signed a deal to computerise records in most of England.

Digitising the medical records of the country’s 62 million people was the core objective of the National Programme for IT in the NHS, accounting for £7 billion of the total estimated cost.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, announced in September that he was abandoning the scheme to create a national patient database because it had “let down” the health service.

He made the decision to “urgently dismantle” the failed project after criticism it was not value for taxpayers’ money.

Yet the company stated in official US papers that it was in talks with the British Government for its contract to be extended until 2017, at a cost of up to £2 billion.

Computer applications installed as part of the scheme have also failed or been scrapped.

However, £250,000 in bonuses has been paid by the DoH to 80 people involved in the scheme as a reward for “an exceptional contribution to delivery”.

CSC, one of the world’s biggest IT providers, had been contracted to provide patient record software, known as the Lorenzo system, to 166 NHS hospitals. But it has delivered on 10 projects. None of those systems is fully functional.

CSC has signed deals worth hundreds of millions of pounds with Royal Mail, Identity and Passport Service and UK Atomic Energy Authority.

The Coalition’s Major Projects Authority, established to review Labour’s financial commitments, found the scheme was not fit to provide services to the NHS.

A cross-party committee of MPs concluded the programme had proved “beyond the capacity of the DoH to deliver”.

Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said it was “shameful” to pour more money into a failed initiative.

Scrapping the controversial and delayed NHS electronic records project could cost more than seeing it through to completion, a parliamentary committee has heard.
The project to install electronic patient records systems at health trusts in the north and east of England and the Midlands is years behind schedule.

The programme has been described as not being “value for money” in a report from public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) and critics have called for the project to be abandoned.

But yesterday, Department of Health (DoH) CIO Christine Connelly told the parliamentary public accounts committee that cancelling the contract with supplier CSC could potentially leave the DoH “exposed to a higher cost than the cost to complete the contract as it stands today”.

She said if the contract were terminated, the resulting contractual costs could run up to “several hundred million pounds”, with the possibility that the supplier could seek damages.

Still further costs could be incurred during the process of moving health trusts over to new care records systems, she said.

But Connelly went on to say that the DoH is still considering all options for the contract with CSC, which the DoH has previously stated includes termination.

Sir David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS, told the committee that the DoH is not currently minded to cancel its contract with CSC: “That’s not what we’re planning to do at the moment.”

Bizarrely he said the DoH could still get something “really good” out of its contract with CSC.

Care records systems are being installed across the whole of England, although progress has been slowest in the north, east and Midlands, the NAO report found.

CSC has repeatedly missed it’s required targets- known as milestones, for the rollout of the care records systems.

By March this year, CSC had missed 67 milestones set under its Local Service Provider (LSP) contract, and recently suffered a further setback when one of four trusts chosen to be early adopters of the care records system pulled out of the project.

The NAO report found that £2.7bn has been spent installing care records systems across the whole of England, and that there is a further £4.3bn still to be spent.

The care records system is being installed in the north, east and Midlands by CSC under the terms of its LSP contract, which is worth just over £3bn, but the DoH has said it expects negotiations will reduce the contract’s value by about £500m.

From: http://www.silicon.com/doh-cio-warns-on-cost-of-scrapping-e-records-project

NHS patients are getting “precious little” from the NHS electronic care records system in England, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.
The £7bn system to replace paper files is falling further behind schedule and in places where it has been introduced it is not working as it should.

The National Audit Office also said some patients would not even get one as large chunks of the NHS had pulled out.

In conclusion, the NAO said the system was not providing value for money – something the government rejected.

The Electronic care records are the key part of the overall £12.4bn NHS IT project.

The scheme was launched in 2002 by Tony Bliar with the aim of revolutionising the way the health service uses technology and also includes developments such as digital x-rays and fast internet connections.

It is the third time the NAO has looked at electronic records – and each time the findings have been more damning.

The report from the NAO presents a depressing account of delays, contractual wrangling and technical glitches.

The original vision for the scheme was compelling – a national network connecting hospitals, GP practices, ambulance services and mental health trusts, and an end to the tortuous paper trails that have caused frustration and misery for doctors and patients alike.

But the complexity and cost of the scheme meant it was always seen by many as a high risk strategy. And when it ran into trouble the plans were scaled back, and the original vision set aside.

Many GPs and hospitals are now working with different systems, prompting the NAO to question whether further investment in the national programme would be pouring good money after bad.

The latest report details a range of problems that the programme is struggling with.

In London, all GP practices and more than half of hospital trusts have pulled out, while in the south three-quarters have. However, this has not been accompanied by a proportionate drop in cost.

Meanwhile, the contract covering the rest of country is currently being renegotiated. Even after such a scaling back, roll out in places that remain part of the system is still proving difficult.

The NAO said it doubted the final deadline of 2016 – which is already six years later than originally envisaged – would be met.

And even in those trusts that have electronic records, there are problems. For example, some hospitals have struggled to introduce electronic prescriptions.

The NAO said the difficulties were caused by a range of factors, including the government being too ambitious, difficulties with technology and the complexity of the NHS.

The problems have prompted some critics to call for the entire scheme to be scrapped – although this is something the NAO stopped short of suggesting.

The government has already announced there will be a review of the project. This is due to start next week.

Tory MP Richard Bacon, a member of the House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee and long-standing critic of the plans, said: “It is perfectly clear that throwing more money at the problem will not work.

“This turkey will never fly and it is time the Department of Health faced reality and channelled the remaining funds into something useful that will actually benefit patients. The largest civilian IT project in the world has failed.”

But the Department of Health said while the original vision “was flawed”, the project still had the potential to deliver value for money.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, of the British Medical Association, said: “We cannot turn the clock back, but this report provides useful lessons on how best to use resources in the future.”

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13430375

The official cause of Dr David Kelly’s death is extremely unlikely say a group of medical experts.
The inquest into the death of David Kelly was suspended before the Hutton inquiry and not resumed afterwards in one of bliar’s many spin events.

A group of prominent legal and medical experts have called for a full inquest into the death of the government scientist David Kelly in 2003.

An inquest was suspended by Lord Falconer, then lord chancellor, before the Hutton inquiry into the circumstances of the scientist’s death. It was not resumed after Hutton’s report in 2004 concluded that Kelly killed himself by cutting an artery in his wrist.

Nine experts including Michael Powers, a QC and former coroner, and Julian Blon, a professor of intensive care medicine, said in a letter to the Times that the official cause of death – haemorrhage from the severed artery – was “extremely unlikely”.

“Insufficient blood would have been lost to threaten life,” they said. “Absent a quantitative assessment of the blood lost and of the blood remaining in the great vessels, the conclusion that death occurred as a consequence of haemorrhage is unsafe.”

Kelly’s body was found in woods close to his Oxfordshire home in 2003, shortly after it was revealed that he was the source of a BBC report casting doubt on the government’s claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction which could be fired within 45 minutes.

Lord Hutton concluded that “the principal cause of death was bleeding from incised wounds to his left wrist which Dr Kelly had inflicted on himself with the knife found beside his body”.

In January, five doctors who made an application to the Oxford coroner to have the inquest reopened, were told that Hutton made a ruling in 2003 to keep medical reports and photographs closed for 70 years. Hutton responded by saying the documents could be revealed to doctors and that he had made the gagging order to spare Kelly’s family “unnecessary distress”.

Hopes for a new inquest have been raised by the change in government. Dominic Grieve, the attorney general, said in April, when he was shadow justice secretary, that the Tories would consider a new inquest into Kelly’s death. He also called for a review of the government’s decision not to release related medical records and postmortem documents.

Grieve is looking at the matter with the justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke. Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP and a junior minister in the coalition government, supports resumption of the inquest. He resigned from the front bench while in opposition to write a book, The Strange Death of David Kelly, which argued that the scientist’s life had been “deliberately taken by others”.

The Hutton inquiry applied a less stringent test than would have been used in an inquest, where a coroner has to be sure “beyond reasonable doubt” that a person intended to kill themselves.

From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/13/experts-call-david-kelly-inquest

The Department of Health has spent almost £500 million on management consultants, including deals with firms which have hired senior Labour figures and high ranking civil servants.The disclosure of more than 100 contracts worth a total of £470 million last night engulfed the labour Government in accusations of “cronyism”.

Among those recruited by the favoured firms are a former health minister, an ex-adviser to the health secretary and a senior Whitehall official responsible for encouraging private sector involvement in the NHS.

Doctors’ and nurses’ leaders expressed concern over the use of resources which could have paid for more than 60,000 hip operations, or the annual salary of 22,000 nurses.

Critics also said the revelations indicated that the “revolving door” between the labour Government and its favourite consultant firms was spinning ever more quickly, with former senior politicians, officials and advisers linked to companies profiting directly from the policies they had introduced.

Lord Warner, a Labour peer, who was a health minister until December 2006, now acts as an adviser to PA Consulting group, which received £4.9 million from the Department of Health (DoH) in 2007/8.

Until last December he also advised Deloitte, which received almost £3 million in the same year.

Since resigning as a minister in 2006, the peer has also registered interests working for six other health care, technology and IT firms.

Matthew Swindells, policy adviser to then health secretary Patricia Hewitt between 2005 and 2007, who was earning £195,000 at the DoH, is now group managing director for health at Tribal, which earned more than £2 million from the department in 2007/8.

KPMG, the finance firm, secured £4.9 million in the same year. Last month the firm announced the appointment of Mark Britnell, currently on gardening leave from his £235,000 role as DoH director general for commissioning.

The civil servant was responsible for a policy to encourage more private sector involvement in the health service. He drew up plans which allowed a shortlist of firms – including KMPG – preferential access to lucrative NHS contracts.

Under rules intended to reduce conflicts of interests, Mr Britnell has been told that he cannot lobby the Government for his first nine months in his new job.

Other figures to have crossed from Government to private sector firms which won the management consultancy contracts include Sir Michael Barber, who was Tony Blair’s chief adviser on delivery – focusing on education and health – from 2001 to 2005.

Since September 2005 Sir Michael has been a partner at McKinsey, which was paid £9 million for management consultancy services to the DoH in 2007/8.

Lord Birt, the former BBC director general, was Tony Blair’s strategy adviser from 2000 to 2005. In 2006 he was appointed as an adviser to Capgemini UK, the British arm of the global outsourcing giant.

The DoH figures show that Capgemini UK was paid £3.2 million in 2007/8 for management consultancy to the DoH and the agency running the NHS IT programme.

Information released under the Freedom of Information Act discloses for the first time the details of 111 management consultancy contracts held by the DoH and two of its central agencies.

In total, the DoH, its IT programme Connecting for Health and the NHS Purchasing and Supplies Agency spent £470 million on management consultants in the three years from 2005/6 to 2007/8.

It came after the department had made hundreds of its own staff redundant via an “efficiency programme” intended to save money.

The spending came in addition to an estimated £350 million spent annually on consultants by 150 primary care trusts. Research has shown consultants in the NHS earning up to £2,000 a day for project work.

Matthew Sinclair, from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “It is particularly alarming that many of these management consultants are political cronies or have only recently finished working for the Department of Health.”

Dr Mark Porter, deputy chairman of the BMA’s consultants committee, said: “These consultants aren’t just taking money from the front line, they are often drawing up policies which in themselves damage patient care.”

Dr Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “We are unable to find any evidence about whether this represents good value.”

Andrew Lansley, the health secretary, said: “This lays bare the hypocrisy of Labour’s claims to have cut back on Government administration costs.”

PA Consulting group said Lord Warner’s advisory work for them did not relate to any contracts held with the DoH. Deloitte said the peer’s role as a strategic adviser ran from March to December last year.

Lord Warner said he only began advising PA Consulting in Autumn 2008, and was no longer advising four of the eight companies he has worked for since stepping down as a minister.

He added: “Provided people leave a decent period after they are in office before they take up such posts – which I did – provided they clear it with the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which I did, and provided they register the interest in a public document – which again I did, I don’t think it is right to stop people who were involved in Government forever from working elsewhere. I would defend to the death the right to have a free flow of labour.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Millions-spent-on-NHS-management-consultants-with-Labour-links