NPfIT to jettison its name…and some suppliers

The National Programme for IT is to change its name to Connecting for Health, NHS IT director-general Richard Granger announced today.

Speaking at Healthcare Computing 2005 in Harrogate, Granger explained that Connecting for Health was "what we are about".

But the re-branding will not disguise some harsh realities for suppliers to the programme some of whom, Granger hinted, were not performing well. "If they can’t do the job they will be replaced. We won’t wait around for years waiting for them to fix it," he said.

"Some of that will occur over the next few months. It will continue to be difficult."

The suppliers causing concern have not been named but, it is understood that the programme’s five local service providers – Accenture and alliances led by BT, CSC and Fujitsu – are not in the frame for review

In a wide ranging speech on the national programme’s achievements and difficulties, Granger highlighted the need for more clinical engagement – a frequently visited theme – but also challenged NHS managers to get involved.

"Few of them [the managerial community] base their decisions on how IT will support their decisions. Few have anyone who understands how information and technology can make a difference to these decisions with a full vote on the board," he said.

Granger added that he would like to see star ratings and chief executives’ performance ratings focus on this issue – and had made his opinion known to NHS chief executive, Sir Nigel Crisp.

Again at the senior level of the programme, Granger welcomed the appointment last year of John Bacon, the Department of Health’s group director of health and social care services delivery, as senior responsible officer (SRO) for the programme and said he had not felt comfortable with the idea of taking on a dual role following the retirement of the original SRO, Sir John Pattison.

He also praised the contribution of Alan Burns, chief excutive of Trent Strategic Health Authority, who was brought in to take over management of clinical engagement . “We’re trying to do the right thing,”he said. “It doesn’t mean we get everything right, but we are trying to do the right thing.”

He said that in England there was a national sickness which meant large projects came under attack when they went through a dip. He thanked his team for keeping their nerve and added: “Not a single senior member of the team has left the programme.”

Achievements he pointed to included:

• the roll out of 5000 wide band connections with 28,000 more to go. These were not ‘home broadband’ installations but much more robust infrastructrure with features such as automatic switching on failure;
• the adoption of national programme terms and conditions into the Office of Government Commerce’s standard terms and conditions;
• a new, stable e-mail directory service currently being used by 30,000 users;
• the rollout of QMAS software for GPs.

The director-general had sharp words for Fuji, the supplier that recently mounted an unsuccessful legal challenge to the national programme’s 2004 PACS procurement. “If Fuji had had any problems they might have said something about it earlier and not participated so enthusiastically [in the procurement],” he commented.