NPfIT spent half total planned in first three years

Tags: A Audit Cerner David Nicholson DH Efficiency iS N3 Network Nicholson NPfIT Savings US

14 Mar 2008

The £12bn NHS IT programme had spent barely half the amount it had planned to by March 2007, due to lengthy delays in the delivery of the detailed local electronic patient records at the centre of the project.

By March 2007 the programme had spent a total of £2.4bn, against an original forecast spend of £4.5bn, a difference of £2.1bn. The majority of this shortfall comes from delays in the delivery of the detailed Care Records Systems to be provided by local service providers (LSPs).

The contracts negotiated by the DH have however proved resilient, ensuring suppliers are not paid unless they deliver contracted systems. The contracts run to 2014.

Originally forecast to be paid £2.8bn by last March the main suppliers – CSC, BT, Fujitsu, iSoft, Cerner – were actually paid £1.3bn.

Significant efficiency savings have been identified from the systems that have been implemented, most notably the NHS network and England-wide roll-out of picture archiving and communications sysystems (PACS)

The £208m recorded savings, from 20% of trusts that are using NHS IT systems, are published in the DH’s first annual statement of NPfIT benefits – something called for last year by the National Audit Office.

Based on the figures the DH says new IT systems in the NHS “are on course to deliver better care and an estimated £1.14 billion in savings by 2014”.

Some £192m, the vast majority of the savings in the period reported, March 2004 to March 2007, are said to have come through delivery of National Network for the NHS. The N3 network is predicted to deliver recurrent savings of £95m year.

A further £14m of savings is said to have come from the introduction of digital imaging and scans, through the installation of picture archiving and communications technology. Recurrent savings of £35m per year are predicted from the now fully implemented system.

A mere £617,000 is reported to have been saved on software licensing and hardware maintenance costs.

Health minister Ben Bradshaw said at a press conference that there have been a lot of moans around IT in the NHS, but he asserted: “Our use of computer technology in the NHS is becoming the envy of the world. It is saving lives, saving time and saving money.”

Chief executive of the NHS, David Nicholson said: “This report shows that we’ve been making really solid progress against delivering an integrated IT system for the NHS, which is not only making us more efficient, but is helping our clinicians and staff deliver better, safer services for patients.”

Jon Hoeksma

Readers Comments

Cost / Benefit comparison

14 Mar 08 10:32

So unless I am missing something we have NPfIT figures showing that: - The actual expenditure to March 2007 was already £2.4 billion - Projected ten year total expenditure was £12.4 billion and - Total quantified expected cash releasing savings to 31/3/14 is only £1.1m

I hope the non-cash benefits are impressive or the figures get better quickly

savings?

14 Mar 08 12:48

Lets get one thing straight here. We're not saving a penny by using these expensive LSP solutions - especially PACS (Xray imaging systems). For the money we're paying our LSP, we could buy 2 PACS systems, and the'd both be better that the one we have!!

Cost disbenefit analysis

16 Mar 08 17:21

Costs will always occur before benefits are achieved, and it would not be unusual for payback to be a couple of years. But half way through the 10 year project, we are nowhere near break-even, and in my view never will be.

I know that for LSP PACS across one entire Cluster, contrasted against local systems payback of around 2 years, there was no payback in the business cases over 10 years. But they were mandated by CfH to do it anyway.

If the benefits of these mega-systems were so great, then the disbenefit of the delays damn the programme for failure to deliver. But the greater blight on local progress meanwhile damns it double.

PACS benefits

20 Mar 08 09:24

I wish people would stop talking about PACS as though it is all completely implemented!!!

Of the sites that went with NPfIT PACS (quite a few did not...) many are still not even connected to the central image stores. One of the major selling points of the (overpriced) NPfIT PACS solution was that trusts would be able to share images quickly and securely. That just hasn't happened yet - and appears to be some years away. Until it does we are a long way from having finished PACS.

As far as benefits go - the centralised approach to procurement has meant that technical standards have been largely abandoned in favour of "this is how NPfIT does it". So even if we had saved money by this approach, it will have been wasted adapting other systems (such as Radiology Information Systems) to work with the NPfIT PACS.

Benefits

bob.curtis@glos.nhs.uk

20 Mar 08 14:14

A benefits report has just been published

http://www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/about/benefits