NHS IT initiative on track, according to director

30 Sep 2004 15:28

Director General of the NHS's National Programme for IT is pleased with the progress, despite difficulties in implementation

The person leading the digitisation of the NHS in England has described its progress as "pretty much on track". Director general of the National Programme for IT in the NHS, Richard Granger, was speaking at the Improvement and Development Agency e-champions conference in London on 28 September 2004.

He said the programme had been "very difficult" to implement, but was pleased with how things were going, saying that the "ecosystem of suppliers are beginning to work together".

Some of the first outputs of the programme are already in practice in locations around the country, he said. "Over 9,000 systems have been delivered to GPs with 4,000 of them already rolled out," according to Granger. And some GPs are booking hospital appointments electronically for their patients.

Granger described how patients would soon be able to book their own appointments when an initiative called Choose and Book is fully implemented. This system will provide patients with more choice, as well as reducing the number of occasions that patients fail to turn up for appointments, he said.

The NHS plans to pilot and deliver digital TV as a medium of undertaking the "whole care programme" with patients. Granger said this technology "will become part of the front end to the NHS".

He described electronic patient records (EPR) as a "complicated area" and said that current records were made up of unconnected paper and electronic documentation in a situation that could lead to data loss.

Granger is keen to push on with developing lifetime electronic records for patients, citing that they could be "drilled into for specific information" by particular sections of the health service.

Modernisation of the NHS is taking place on a massive scale, and digital information is being put at the forefront, he said. His aim is a "digital health service that is fit for the future" - but he warned that it will "not be achieved overnight".

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