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NAO report set to criticise NHS IT refresh
Project has failed to capture "hearts and minds" of staff...

By Colin Barker

Published: Friday 24 March 2006

A long-awaited report on the NHS by the National Audit Office (NAO) is expected to criticise the government's plans for the modernisation of the health service and the progress made so far in implementing the £6.2bn NHS IT programme.

According to reports, a transcript of a House of Commons public accounts committee meeting revealed that the report by the NAO's comptroller and auditor general, Sir John Bourn, will set out the failures of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

At the meeting, Bourn criticised the project saying it had failed to win the "hearts and minds" of NHS staff including doctors, nurses and administrators, according to a leaked copy of the report published in Computer Weekly.

Bourn's remark came in an exchange with Conservative MP Richard Bacon, who asked if hospital trusts were going to have to cover the costs of local implementation of the NPfIT even where these systems were not wanted.

In response, Bourn said his report had two main themes, one focusing on the technical areas underlying NHS IT and the second being "all the things that you say, which is the failure to take the people in the National Health Service with the system".

The report is due to be released this summer.

Colin Barker writes for ZDNet UK