The latest Medix survey shows that doctors' support for the NHS's National Programme for IT is falling, despite a general enthusiasm for new IT.
Doctors' support for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is waning and they are becoming increasingly critical of the five-year-old scheme, according to a report by research company Medix.
Whereas Medix research in early 2004 showed that 56 percent of GPs and 75 percent of other doctors were enthusiastic about NPfIT, the latest findings show this has dropped to 23 percent of GPs and 35 percent of other doctors.
In 2003, 47 percent of all respondents thought NPfIT was a good use of NHS resources and 27 percent judged it a poor use, but, according to the most recent research, those figures have changed to eight percent and 70 percent respectively.
"When NPfIT was launched, most doctors... were pleased that the government had decided to allocate substantial funds to a radical update of NHS IT systems," stated Medix's report. "Today, five years later, doctors still support the principles of the project, but most are critical of its costs and believe it is being poorly implemented."
The latest research, carried out in October and November of this year, produced four other key findings:
- Only eight percent of the more than 1,000 doctors who responded said that information about NPfIT received from the Department of Health was reliable and accurate
- More than half (52 percent) did not understand, or had never heard of, the Summary Care Record
- Seventy-four percent of respondents said they did not feel engaged with the programme, compared with only two percent who said they felt very engaged
- Most doctors (76 percent) agreed that an independent review of the programme was important
Choose and Book was perceived as a particular problem area. Although 49 percent of GPs said they use Choose and Book for more than 40 percent of referrals, most of those (90 percent) said that it increased the time taken to make referrals.
More positively, the survey found that most doctors recognised the benefits of the national programme. For example, 55 percent said they thought it will improve clinical care in the long term, and 47 percent agreed that the e-patient record system will enable clinicians to make better decisions.
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A spokesperson for Connecting for Health, the agency responsible for NPfIT, said on Friday: "We would view these results in light of what patients tell us, for example, on the positive contribution Choose and Book has made to patient referral times, and the early signs from those areas introducing the Summary Care Record about the improvement this will make to patient safety."
"In the light of all of this wider experience and evidence, the results of the Medix survey do not appear to reflect the general picture on the ground, or chime with other recent comprehensive surveys," the spokesperson added.
The spokesperson said that Connecting for Health is engaged in consultations with a wide range of clinicians about all elements of the NPfIT and that, last Thursday, 200 clinicians gathered in London to meet with the programme's senior management.
