Cost of abandoned NHS IT system to hit ?10bn

[Northerner]

The cost of a scrapped government initiative, intended to provide NHS patients with individual care records is predicted to continue rising significantly, MPs have warned.

Conservative MP and member of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Richard Bacon described the ambitious scheme ? shelved two years ago ? as one of the ?most protracted and worst contracting scandals in the history of the public sector ? both in the scale of money involved and the scale of the mistakes?.

In 2011 the Department of Health announced plans to dismantle the scheme to upgrade NHS computers systems, putting the bill of the project at ?6.4b.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ndoned-nhs-it-system-to-hit-10bn-8823917.html

What a waste

 

[trophywench]

They were talking about this the other day on Vine or something I caught part of and an 'ordinary' IT bloke said if the NHS employed decent IT people in the first place and not go for the cheapest option where someone says they can do it - with no track record or proof that they can - what do they expect?

Also he's actually employed ex NHS IT staff - with IT degrees and all sorts when they joined NHS - and had to get rid of em PDQ because they aren't as skilled as your average 18 year old school leaver these days - just not up to date with IT and have years and years to catch up on, before they could ever possibly be any use in IT.

 

[Northerner]

Actually, I think the opposite happened - much of the expense was due to overpaid consultants who charged a fortune but didn't 'join up the dots' - hardware was incompatible with software etc., too many alterations allowed to specifications. Extremely poor management. Perhaps they couldn't afford good programmers after paying all the contractors It's been a big beef throughout my career that many managers view programmers as 'code monkeys', whereas in reality a good programmer will spot the design flaws before they become expensive.