No budget for NPfIT agreed post March

Tags: A Budget NPfIT O'Brien Treasury

08 Jan 2010

No budget for the NHS National Programme for IT has yet been agreed after the end of March, now less than three months away.

By the end of March the programme will have spent in excess of £6 billion, almost the whole of the original £8.14 billion budget. But no budget for the years after 2009-10 is yet in place, despite elements of the programme running up to five years late into 2014-15.

Negotiations between the Department of Health and the Treasury are currently underway to identify where the £500-600m of NPfIT cuts identified in December’s pre-Budget report will be made. The DH is also in urgent discussions with suppliers on how savings will be delivered.

In December the Chancellor said he thought the NHS IT project was expensive”, “not essential for the frontline” or “something we need to go ahead with just now” strongly suggesting it should be subject to deep cuts, or scrapped entirely.

Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham said £600m would be saved from the £12.7 billion NPfIT programme, which he reported had spent £4.5 billion by the end of the last NHS financial year. Asked how much of the total budget had been spent he “40-50% has been paid out so far.”

In a written response to a parliamentary question health minister Mike O’Brien confirmed discussions with the Treasury on NPfIT continue.

“As part of the current government-wide drive to find efficiency savings and better value for money on major projects, officials are holding ongoing discussions with the Treasury, and with suppliers, about how these might be generated in relation to the national programme.”

O’Brien gave figures on capital and revenue expenditure to date by the programme. These show that the total spent by the NHS National Programme for IT since 2004 had reached £4.96 billion, and is projected to reach £6.1 billion by the end of March.

This was beneath the initially budgeted expenditure for the programme, for the five years beginning 2005-06, a year later than the six years figures for actual reported expenditure, which projected total expenditure at £8.14 billion by the end of 2009-10.

However, no figures have been agreed by the Treasury on NPfIT expenditure beyond the end of March, less than three months away.

Mike O’Brien said: “Expenditure plans for the years beyond 200910 are currently being reviewed in light of the announcements made in the pre-Budget reports, and of evolving IT needs of the NHS.

He said that comprehensive figures for the total expenditure of the national programme for information technology was not available, as they included both central and local costs incurred by trusts for training and upgrading hardware.

“Local information is not routinely collected in a way that differentiates expenditure on the IT programme from other local IT-related expenditure.”

NPfIT Initial Budget
£ million
	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Capital	1,198	1,055	915	917	800
Revenue	799	638	607	631.3	580

£ million
	Actual expenditure					Forecast Outturn
	2004-05	2005-06	2006-07	2007-08	2008-09	2009-10
Capital	360	429	589	686.0	535.1	562.6
Revenue	260	539	528	507	528.4	573.8

Jon Hoeksma

Darling targets efficiency, pay and tax (09 Dec 2009) (1)
Burnham defends NPfIT but cuts £600m (07 Dec 2009) (3)
Turmoil grips NHS IT programme (07 Dec 2009) (1)
NHS IT programme faces cuts (06 Dec 2009) (11)

Readers Comments

The beginning of the end?

09 Jan 10 08:13

This is the most sensible thing I've heard since 2003!

Fingers crossed

13 Jan 10 11:35

Like most of the public sector, it looks like NPFIT will have to cross its fingers and wait until after the Election before knowing how deeply it will be cut. It looks like neither of the parties will reveal their hand in advance of the Election, so its just short-term planning and guesswork for the time being.

End the agony

13 Jan 10 11:59

Why can't someone make a decision and end this money-wasting venture which from a mere patient's point of view has worsened my 'patient journey'?

Can't agree about patient journey

15 Jan 10 11:28

I have been against the NPFIT programme from the beginning and it still had more holes than a tea strainer, BUT in the last 2 years I have had to change my opinion.

Why? Because it has vastly improved my patient journey on 5 different occasions. This is in several hospitals (some of which are not rated that well) in the thames valley.

I had an MRI, I arrived 5 minutes early and was seen within 2 minutes, this compares to when I took a relative for an MRI at the same hospital 3 years ago and was kept waiting over an hour. I asked what happened and they said better systems.

I also had the opportunity to use choose and book for an operation; now while I might like to be able to review what I saw in the GP surgery at home, I was very pleased to be able to choose a centre which could see me within a week and operate within a month. I could see that the hospital I might have used could not even put me in front of a consultant for a month.

I have had several other procedures (e.g. hearing test and consultation) again both provided prompt appointments where I was seen quickly and out of there before my parking ticket expired. Previously I would have been kept waiting for hours.

Being in the industry I make a point of commenting on the improvements and am repeatedly told that there are better systems in place.

I am not saying there is not room for improvement, I would change quite a lot and bring the systems management inhouse, but I can't ignore the improvements to the frontline.

4 - Sample size

15 Jan 10 14:55

@4 Interesting ...

So previously, if you had been given a 9am hospital hearing test appointment, you would have been kept waiting for "hours". Really? But thanks to NPfIT you are seen immediately!

Choose and Book I can't comment on.

MRI lists - run their scans pretty much back to back here, though, for all sorts of reasons a list might fall behind.

Don't you think we have a rather small sample sizes here to allow generalisation to the success of NPfIT.

Perhaps there has been some improvements to public transport in your area, allowing clinics to run to time more often. Who knows?