NHS Confederation: Improvements needed in IT systems
Friday, 14 Mar 2008 16:39
The NHS' Connecting for Health programme still has a long way to go to reach its full potential, NHS Confederation chief executive Gill Morgan believes.
Ms Morgan was responding to the Department of Health's benefits statement on the NHS' IT programme, which revealed today there were £280 million of savings made from the scheme in 2006/07.
She said electronic prescriptions were important for cutting both errors and paperwork and welcomed the PACS digitalised X-ray system, which has improved patient care and released resources.
But Ms Morgan also said local clinicians and managers had not been consulted early enough and said the system's complexity had caused "real problems".
"Connecting for Health was a very ambitious and imaginative programme that could never instantly put the English NHS at the leading edge of electronic systems," she commented.
"We welcome this statement and recognise that there is a great deal still to be done both to deliver the benefits promised by this program and to sort through the problems that often arise in transformations of this scale."