- Tuesday, 10 November 2009
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Lawyers and painters can soon change black to white - Danish proverb
NHS computer faults worst in years
FOR THOSE OF YOU who had little faith in the NHS already, prepare for your blood to boil further as figures show that the number of severe faults in NHS computer systems has almost doubled in the last three years.
These are not just insignificant little faults either, as 820 of them are recorded as 'severity one' or critical faults.
These severity one faults are in connection with a system which is critical to a patient's care and can affect up to 5,000 NHS computer users at one time – these figures have risen from 488 back in 2006.
Last October the recorded number of critical faults more than doubled from 71 in September to 165 in relation to a problem on two particular machines – if these figures keep rising goodness knows what could happen to out healthcare system.
The problem, according to NHS Connecting for Health lies with the £12.7 billion National Programme for IT (NPfIT) rollout which has suffered from its own disease for four years now.
She did hold faith, however, in the fact that none of these errors have actually had any affect on a patient – yet.
These figures were revealed in a parliamentary answer to Liberal Democrat MP Norman Lamb.
We wish you all good health until further notice. μ
L'Inq
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The problem is clearly that not enough money is spent on IT. The budget must be increased so that the system can survive.
Please notify me when the IT spending hits 25% of the nation's budget or double the military spoils.
The problem is not the amount of cash spent on IT for the NHS. It's the fact that it is generally wasted. Blown on optimistic contracts, with no realistic measurement of success by either the public sector bodies or the contractors who sign them.
zero public sector short term accountability + opportunistic / inept contractors = cash p1ssed up the wall.
I think that I found the problem:
"The NHS in England has negotiated a central licensing arrangement with Microsoft - called an Enterprise Agreement (EA or EWA) - which provides software licences to all personal computers (including desktops and laptops) for specific core Microsoft products across all of the NHS organisations in England including Primary Care Groups, Acute, Ambulance, Community and Mental Health Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities, including Special Health Authorities.
The EA has also been extended to include the Department of Health and its relevant authorities, plus all Hospices and Palliative Care Units providing care to patients in England and linked to the Hospices Connect Programme."
I am glad that UK tax dollars are going to a good cause (Ballmer's wallet). Perhaps taxpayers could just withhold part of their taxes until the government comes to its senses, sues Microsoft, and installs a reliable, low-cost open-source health care services software that provides some value for their tax dollars?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_healthcare_software
As long as healthcare is treated like a business expect "customer" satisfaction like when dealing with a... business. Come on let's get real... healthcare is just about profit like any business.
Having spent nigh on 2 years (in a former life) working on the NPfIT/CfH turd polishing exercise, this doesn't really surprise me. br /
There are all sorts of issues (as brushed upon by other commentors), not least that some of the certain vendors' software was entirely not-fit-for-purpose from the get-go. br /
While the likes of iSOFT are still affiliated with this project, don't expect things to improve any time soon.