The £11bn NHS computer system to create and make available all patients' records has been a failure, so a report from MPs says. £6.4bn has already been spent on what turns out to be an unworkable system.
What on earth have they been doing? It's not that they have to do anything complex with the information - just collect it and make it available. No complicated maths or manipulation of the data, it beggars belief! How many extra operations could have been paid for with the money they've wasted ?
I worked in "information technology" thirty years ago (although it wasn't known as IT then). In those days a systems analyst investigated the systems being used and how they could be transformed by a computerised system. To do this, you had to "get your hands dirty" by investigating what people actually did, and what system they actually needed. Sometimes people didn't do that step rigorously, as they thought they knew best what the customer needed. It was those computer systems that turned out to be disasters.
But that was, as I said, 30 years ago. Surely the industry has learned that basic lesson by now? Apparently not. The committee of MPs said, "the department could have avoided some of the pitfalls and waste if they had consulted at the start with health professionals."
In other words, highly paid managers think they know what's best without bothering at ask the people who will actually work the system.
Sadly, lessons are never learnt. And the same story will be told in the future about some other massively costly computer system. And it's our money that's being poured down the drain.
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