Survey reveals doctors' pessimism about NPfIT

19 Feb 2007

A survey of over 3000 doctors has revealed that the overwhelming majority are not optimistic that the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) will change the NHS - but only a small minority thought it should be abandoned at this stage.

Only 9% of doctors expressed optimism about the programme’s potential to change the service and a resounding 91% disagreed with them.

The survey, commissioned by The Times, and carried out by doctors.net, also revealed that 76% thought NPfIT had been a “frustrating project”

Very few (7%) felt the programme should receive more investment to make it a success.

Overall, responses to the five survey questions relating to NPfIT, showed that the 3,092 NHS doctors surveyed were not convinced of the programme’s merits but did not believe it should be abandoned or receive any additional funding.

Respondents to the survey came from NHS doctors of all grades working in both general practice and hospital medicine.

The results come after the chairman of the British Medical Association council, James Johnson revealed that a BMA survey had found that systems like Choose and Book are overwhelmingly unpopular with both GPs and hospital consultants.

He told E-Health Insider that these issues could have been avoided if the profession had been engaged from the beginning.

“I’ve always maintained with CfH that if you have doctors on board, it would be a lot easier to counter a lot of negative press. They should have brought people in from the beginning, they have people from the profession on boards now who are enthused in the system, which is a good thing, but there is still a way to go.”

Hospital doctors are particularly frustrated at the lack of involvement from the start, which has led to delays for crucial new systems, he added.

“It is particularly difficult in hospitals where if systems are on the verge of being completely unusable, then consultants are left wondering, ‘What do you do?’”

The Times/doctors.net survey also revealed that 56% of doctors thought there has been no improvement in the NHS generally since 2002 and 72% believed that increasing in funding had not been well spent and that the quality of care had not increased in line with these funding increases.

Over half of the doctors surveyed graduated in the last two decades and the same amount indicated that they would not work in the NHS until retirement age.

Deputy chairman of the BMA consultants’ committee, Mark Porter, told The Times: “The results of this survey are disturbing and give a snapshot view of how demoralised and frustrated some doctors are feeling.

“It is of major concern that a majority of respondents to this survey are saying that they do not believe the NHS has improved since 2002 and that they do not think the increase in NHS expenditure has been well spent. It is also worrying that so many of them say they plan to retire early.”

Neil Bacon, who launched doctors.net in 1999, told The Times that he was not surprised by the results of the survey: “Doctors support the NHS, but they have a great deal of concern that the underlying problems are not being addressed.”

Connecting for Health declined to comment on the survey findings but pointed EHI to the ‘Evidence base for NPfIT’ which shows overwhelming support for the aims and objectives of the national programme.

Reader's Comments

hmmm

19 Feb 07 14:26

"....systems like Choose and Book are overwhelmingly unpopular with () GPs... "?

In my experience the GPs and other practice staff are unhappy with the C&B system, true, but that's because the systems involved don't seem to have been engineered with the real world in mind, i.e. bandwidth at a practice, time available to make a referral, etc.

Many staff in our patch love the concept and would be delighted to be able to offer such a service to the patient while they are sitting there being treated but it just can't deliver!

Lack of specificity

19 Feb 07 17:03

Asking Doctors whether they like NPfIT is rather too general to be very helpful.

Do they like Choose and Book ? No, and it is because it performs technically really badly, and the many workarounds have mostly made it a backroom rather than GP/Patient task

Do they like Electronic Transfer of Prescriptions ? less concerned, because mostly invisible as yet, but worrying views emerging from Pharmacists around performance

Do they like the Spine ? mostly not a lot, but no experience on the ground yet.

Do they like the detailed care record ? No, though for many hospital doctors, yet to experience the joy.

Do they like GPSoC ? well they like the choice, but won't like the smallprint about remote operation and loss of control.

Do they like PACS ? Yes, because it is fast and does a useful job well, not difficult, and the impact of CfH has been to create universal coverage at a high cost.

In my experience, give clinicians something that has been well end-user tested, works reliably, and clearly helps them, there is never an issue (but always enhancements that they want to make).

Give them something that underperforms the promise, clearly does not function reliably or quickly enough, and they are quick to criticise and reject it. As true of medical equipment as IT.

There is nothing new here. Except those at CfH who appear to ignore the evidence on the ground.

The CfH website you link to does not appear to show a very balanced view. No suprise there either.

Survey confusion!

27 Feb 07 17:16

Is this the same survey that was reported in theregister.co.uk (under the heading ‘Doctors back controversial NHS IT system) that stated:

‘In a survey of 3,000 doctors, 66 per cent said they think the new system would make a positive change to the NHS. In a survey carried out by website doctors.net.uk for The Times newspaper, 86 per cent of the doctors surveyed said they thought the scheme should not be abandoned.’

The article went on to say:

‘Doctors were asked whether they were optimistic that the Connecting for Health IT system would change the way the NHS is run and 91 per cent said yes. When asked if they were sceptical that it will make a positive change, 66 per cent said they were not sceptical’

Are these two surveys related? I think we should be told!