Health select committee to investigate NPfIT

An inquiry into the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) will be held by the House of Commons’ health select committee, according to a report in Computer Weekly.

The committee originally decided not to hold such an inquiry, but are reported to have changed their minds after they were provided with documents from the magazine, including a confidential briefing paper on the NPfIT from directors of informatics at a large NHS trust, which expressed ‘profound concerns about some aspects of the NPfIT’.

Dr Richard Taylor, a former hospital consultant and independent MP for Wyre Forest, also gave the inquiry strong support after he had an informal briefing with BT, which ‘had been so unremittingly positive about the programme that he found it lacked credibility, and this made him wonder whether the programme was as successful as the supplier claimed.’

MPs on the committee will now be able to take evidence from trust executives concerned about the lack of progress in the delivery of patient administration systems in hospitals, and from GPs about whether centralised electronic health records will be secure.

Martyn Thomas, one of the 23 academics who called for such an inquiry in April, said: “Speaking on behalf of the 23, we welcome the news that the health committee intends to hold an inquiry early in the new year. We intend to submit evidence to the inquiry further supporting our call for a full, independent and open review of the NPfIT.”

Richard Granger, chief executive of Connecting for Health, told the Financial Times yesterday that a combination of the NHS’s financial troubles and problems with software means that the installation of new patient administration systems in hospitals is likely to be further delayed.