Efforts to digitise NHS proving a costly failure, say MPS

ATTEMPTS to make the NHS go digital are failing and billions of pounds are at risk of being wasted in the absence of a proper plan, MPS have warned.

A report by the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) has found that officials have “none” of the essential components in place to turn around the “track record of expensive, failed IT programmes”.

It also criticises attempts to create i ntegrated IT systems that allow patients’ records to be shared electronically throughout England.

The report warned that hospitals were vulnerable to further cyber attacks, such as the 2018 Wannacry breach, unless systems are updated.

It comes six years after the Department of Health stated its ambition to have turned the NHS paperless by 2018.

The target has since been pushed back by six years and watered down so that the NHS reaches merely a “core level” of digitisation by 2024.

However, the committee found that the NHS and the Department of Health and Social Care did not have a proper implementation strategy to deliver even this level of service.

NHS leaders have said it will need £8.1 billion to meet its digital transformation ambitions, of which £3 billion will need to come from trusts themselves.

Meg Hillier MP, chairman of the PAC, said: “After 18 years of failed attempts to digitally transform the NHS, you would hope that the one success that could be claimed was the learning and change to ensure those failures are not repeated.

“Incredibly, still, none of the components essential to successful delivery of the digital ambition for the NHS are in place, and instead the Government presses on with expensive and unproven strategies and contracts that cost the taxpayer millions but don’t deliver.”

Ms Hillier added: “The response to the pandemic demonstrates it is possible to reset and adopt new digital solutions and technologies. But there needs to be a clear strategy that works with local trusts and acknowledges the financial pressures they are under.”

Saffron Cordery, deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, which represents hospital managers, said: “Despite efforts by national policymakers, we know there is varying levels of digital maturity across the trust sector.

“In recent years, a number of trusts have made huge gains while others have struggled to invest in the technology and skills needed to transform services.”

She added: “But regardless of previous successes or failures, Covid-19 has accelerated digital ways of working across the NHS.”