By Elizabeth Smythe
22/09/2011
NHS hospitals are to be allowed to choose their own IT management systems, after an £11 billion IT scheme is scrapped, BBC News reports.
The government is due to announce the scrapping of their ambitious and costly National Programme for IT, which was launched in 2002 and was meant to link all of the NHS in England. However, it has been dogged with delays and incurred additional expenses.
The idea was to create an "individual electronic patient care record" which could easily be passed between different areas of the NHS.
A review of the project found that ministers had "no confidence its plans will be delivered."
Instead, individual hospitals will be given the freedom to choose their own computer systems, though government sources are keen to point out that Trusts will still share patient information and the appointment system would remain as is.
Health secretary, Andrew Lansley told the Mail Online: "Labour's IT programme let down the NHS and wasted taxpayer's money by imposing a top-down IT system on the local NHS, which didn't fit their needs.
"We will be moving to an innovative new system driven by local decision-making. This is the only way to make sure we get value for money from IT systems that better meet the needs of a modernised NHS."
