Hospital boss hits out at IT system

12 April 2012

A NHS hospital boss has criticised the new computerised medical records system, saying it cost his trust an extra £10 million and meant fewer patients could be seen.

Andrew Way, chief executive of Hampstead's Royal Free Hospital, in north west London, said staff were "incredibly disappointed" with the IT upgrade on trial at the hospital.

The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) aims to create a centralised medical records system for 50 million patients in England at a cost of more than £12 billion.

The Government believes this will benefit patient care and could prove vital in an emergency. The Royal Free began trialling the e-records system last summer.

Mr Way told the BBC: "I think it is very disappointing that the work we had to do as a trust has caused our staff so much heartache and hard work. Many of the medical staff are incredibly disappointed with what we have got.

"I have personally apologised for the decision to implement the system before we were really clear about what we were going to receive. I had been led to believe it would all work."

He said the hospital spent an extra £4 million to get the system working, with added administration costs including 40 extra staff to handle the added workload.

And he said a further £6 million was effectively lost because fewer patients and problems with the system meant the hospital was unable to bill other parts of the NHS for work done.

He also said the Royal Free had been unable to invest in new equipment and out-patient bookings were taking four times as long.

A Department of Health spokesman said: "Many elements of the programme are complete, and patients and clinicians are now beginning to see the benefits these systems bring to improve patient care. We are learning lessons from the deployment at the Royal Free of Cerner Millennium (the new computer system), which now has an effective patient record system, and we expect these lessons to help us improve further deployments."

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