Storm over Fujitsu executive’s ‘honest’ NPfIT remarks

A senior executive from local service provider to the Southern cluster, Fujitsu, has said that the intense pressure suppliers are under to deliver short-terms risks the wider aims of the NHS National Programme for IT systems, resulting in a danger of it delivering “a camel, and not the racehorse that we might try to produce.”

Andrew Rollerson, healthcare consultancy practice lead at Fujitsu, the prime contractor for the NPfIT project in the South of England was speaking at a conference in London last week where he was delivering a presentation entitled ‘Lost?’.

Rollerson was quoted by Computer Weekly as warning there was a "Gradual coming apart of what we are doing on the ground because we are desperate to get something in and make it work, versus what the programme really ought to be trying to achieve."

His reported remarks were seized upon up by a series of national newspapers as ‘proof’ of the programme’s failings.

The public acknowledgement of widespread problems and project drift certainly comes at a delicate stage for the NPfIT programme, with the agency responsible Connecting for Health needing to attract new players into the market.

One senior supplier told EHI that such a frank public exposure of NPfIT’s difficulties may also not help iSoft’s quest for a buyer, who would necessarily have to address many of the issues raised by Rollerson.

Rollerson was reported to say: “The more pressure we come under, both as suppliers and on the NHS side, the more we come under, both as suppliers and on the NHS side, the more we are reverting to a very sort of narrowly focused IT-oriented behaviour. This is not a good sign for the programme.”

His public warning echoes concerns that key suppliers have repeatedly acknowledged to E-Health Insider in private, about how intense pressure to deliver is working in known problems being let through, a focus on targets and payments rather than quality.

Rollerson’s comments were accepted by some in the industry as welcome breath of fresh air, providing a necessary and honest account of the state of the NPfIT programme. Benedict Stanberry, managing director of healthcare consulting firm Avienda who also presented at the conference.  He told E-Health Insider that Rollerson had simply given an honest opinion of the project.

“Andrew Rollerson tried to give an honest, open appraisal of what’s needed to make the NHS IT programme work, and landed up on the front page of all the national newspapers when he was in fact speaking in the best interests of the programme. Everything that Andrew had to say was motivated by a deep commitment to the NHS and a genuine desire to see the IT programme deliver lasting improvements in patient care.”

Rollerson said in his presentation to EyeforHealthcare’s ‘Successful implementation of NPfIT’ conference that the enormous size of NPfIT means that the standard management techniques used needed to be rethought.

He was reported to say: “What we are trying to do is run an enormous programme with the techniques that we are absolutely familiar with for running small projects. And it isn’t working. And it isn’t going to work. Unless we do some serious thinking about that – about the challenges of scale and how you scale up to an appropriate size – then I think we are out on a limb.”

He also reminded the audience that Connecting for Health was effectively a national IT department and there was a need to dismiss the fallacy that the NHS IT programme would transform the NHS ‘simply by delivering an IT system.’ “Nothing could be further from the truth. A vacuum, a chasm is opening up. It was always there,” he said.

Defending Rollerson’s comments, Stanberry added: “A good consultant is always honest with their client and that means they have to be neutral and objective about the challenges involved in achieving the changes the client wants.

“Andrew Rollerson was very much reviewing the IT programme from the point of view of the massive organisational and cultural changes that still need to take place if the NHS is to realise all the benefits and opportunities that single, shared electronic records and booking systems will create.”

Ian Lamb, NHS account director at Fujitsu said: “We refute any inference that has been drawn to the effect that Fujitsu in any way questions the success of the National Programme.”

According to a press report in the Evening Standard, Labour insiders say health secretary Patricia Hewitt has been ordered by Tony Blair to explain how the project has gone wrong.