this.
I studied examples of systems failure previously and the best ones were always NHS and ALWAYS failed because of the unbelievably bollocks staff. The NHS has made a better idiot. It's an idiot which is also extremely feckless and insolent.

Which is why the Tories are going to tear it apart. They want efficiency which is tantamount to effective staff and projects which work. Which makes me so so sad, because it will be to the detriment of us all and the people who allowed this to be justified are the ones within the system, contesting it most of all.

I work in IT. My IT kin could have saved you fuckers, but your pig ignorant nature have condemned us to paying for healthcare which *we already pay for with our taxes*.

Damm you all.
(skgorsky, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 9:49, 1 reply)

I think you find that Labour introduced a very successful National Program for IT
It has been quite a struggle for the last 7 years implementing it but it's nearly there, all the money has been spent and it's producing phenomenal efficiencies at all the trusts that have bought into it.

Now it's all in place and ready to exploit, the Tories will merely take all the glory persuading the remaining authorities to buy into it in the name of austerity.

The fact that it was a labour government and a labour chancellor who drove it through; that it was a long term program of invest to save and that it was likely that a future administration would take all the glory will be all too easily forgotten as the Tories dish out the cushy jobs of operating and maintaining it to their big business buddies.

If you can see past the politics what you'll see is a world leading healthcare system free at the point of use. There is nothing of it's kind and scale anywhere else on earth and we IT people should be very proud of it, I know I am.
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 10:01, closed)

So all the failures associated with it are...?

I don't care about party politics. I just like to see stuff work and evolve and get better.
(skgorsky, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 11:12, closed)

Stuff and nonsense really
Politicians have a knack of twisting the truth for their own ends, much like the press.
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 12:27, closed)

Some more from the NAO
Today's NAO report concludes that the £2.7 billion spent so far on care records systems does not represent value for money. And, based on performance so far, the NAO has no grounds for confidence that the remaining planned spending of £4.3 billion on care records systems will be any different.

The original aim of the Programme was for every patient to have an electronic care record by 2010. The systems the Department contracted its suppliers, BT and CSC, to deliver are now not all expected to be in place until 2015-16. Even so, based on performance so far, it is unlikely that the remaining work in the North, Midlands and East, where just four of 97 systems have been delivered to acute hospital trusts in seven years, can be completed by 2016 when the contract with CSC expires.

So. Vastly over budget, years behind schedule, doesn't do what it was supposed to - what definition of "successful" are you using?
(ubergeekian, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 13:39, closed)

CSC's bottom line?

( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 13:51, closed)

Pretty much.
I once had the misfortune to work with the company (iSoft) that did the actual work CSCs PAS.

Never again.
(The Luggage is haunted..., Tue 20 Mar 2012, 15:25, closed)

Very successful?
Surely you jest. Here's what the National Audit Office had to say

"The original vision for the National Programme for IT in the NHS will not be realised. The NHS is now getting far fewer systems than planned despite the Department paying contractors almost the same amount of money. This is yet another example of a department fundamentally underestimating the scale and complexity of a major IT-enabled change programme.

"The Department of Health needs to admit that it is now in damage-limitation mode. I hope that my report today, together with the forthcoming review by the Cabinet Office and Treasury, announced by the Prime Minister, will help to prevent further loss of public value from future expenditure on the Programme."

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, 18 May 2011

Read it and weep: www.nao.org.uk/publications/1012/npfit.aspx
(ubergeekian, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 13:36, closed)

The N3 network is quite nice,
now that it doesn't undergo a spectacular collapse every 2 days.
NPfIT was a disaster - anything good that has happened has been inspite of it, not because of it. Still, it did give plenty of people some cushy jobs for a few years, and that's good for the economy, right?
It did have noble intentions, and a unified PAS system across all departments of all hospitals would have been a wonderful thing. Could have worked, too.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Tue 20 Mar 2012, 13:43, closed)