Granger: “Fewer than 100” referrals made on ebooking

Nevertheless, Granger confirmed that "we are not behind for achieving the roll out… the core technology is in and it works."  He went on to add that the choose and book engine was fully available and tested to manage half a billion appointments a year.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Granger said that initial stability problems with the spine had delayed the rollout of Choose and Book in the early adopters, which include Archway, Edmonton and Barnsley PCTs, and that a second group of early adopters will now not start using the system until at least January.

Granger confirmed that "fewer than 100" bookings have been made using Choose and Book, which first went live in July.  He stressed though that the problems have now been resolved and the reason for the low number of bookings was the limited amount of specialties it was being tested on.

The Director General said it was down to the hospitals running the early versions of Choose and Book to expand the system further. Delays, he said, were “nothing to do with the technology” but because of hospitals only making a small number of specialities available to the booking system. "That is limiting the number of patients who can be referred," he said. The hospitals had to address that to allow the programme to expand, he added.

The differentiation made by Granger between technology being made available and hospitals making changes to use it promises to be a recurring theme of the national programme as it moves into delivery. Moving from 100 appointments over four months to half a billion a year by the end of 2005 will require a massive increase in sites using the system and of specialities offered by hospitals over Choose and Book.

Granger also directly addressed concerns from the BMA, among others, about the perceived lack of consultation with end-users about the architecture of the system. He told the FT that more needed to be done to inform clinicians about NPfIT, but added that the decision to build the system before selling it to users had been taken before he joined the NHS. It was he said a decision, "that comes back to bite you".

On confidentiality, he acknowledged that clinicians’ concerns were important, but that electronic medical records held by GPs would not be transferred under the e-referrals system and that clinicians had nothing to worry about.

E-Health Insider reported two weeks ago that Alan Burns, chief of Trent Strategic Health Authority, would be appointed as a head of service implementation on a part-time basis and would be responsible for clinical engagement.

Burns will be appointing a team of national ‘clinical champions’, including Dr Gillian Braunold from the join General Practioner IT committee at the BMA and Heather Drabble from the Modernisation Board.