How vital computer system is run by IT company in Texas
A TEXAN firm with an annual turnover of £400million was last night at the centre of the IT disaster.
Hitachi Consulting, based in Dallas, has had a contract to run the software for the NHS’s breast cancer screening programme since 2015.
The software – the National Breast Screening System – is meant to ensure women are invited for mammograms every three years and record their results.
But in March 2017, two major health trusts in London and Birmingham warned Public Health England (PHE) of problems with the invitations.
Some women aged 68-71 were not apparently receiving invitations to what should have been their last mammogram.
Officials at PHE told Hitachi to investigate, who then reported back that the problems were ‘ local issues’ only. The health body did not pursue the matter any further on the assumption that it was not a largescale, national problem.
But in December 2017 concerns were raised again – by academics who were overseeing an Oxford-led trial to extend the breast cancer screening programme.
They had discovered that letters were not going out to women aged 71-73 inviting them for mammograms as part of the trial.
Further investigations by PHE in January this year uncovered that women aged 68 to 71 were not receiving the letters either.
Between January and March, health chiefs at PHE realised that the problem had been going on for nearly a decade, and that 450,000 women had not been invited to mammograms.
A Hitachi Consulting spokesman insisted the company was not to blame for the error because it had been going on since 2009 – six years before it was awarded the contract.
The spokesman refused to comment as to why the firm had dismissed the initial concerns from health trusts as local problems however.
On its website, Hitachi Consulting describes itself as a ‘market leader’ in computer software and electronics.
It employs 6,500 staff in 50 countries including the UK, Japan, the US, Brazil, China and India.
It chief executive is 44year- old Hicham Abdessamad, who was born in Casablanca, Morocco.
He lived there until he was 18, when he moved to the US to study computer engineering at the private Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr Abdessamad then attended Dartmouth College, an Ivy League research university in Hanover, New Hampshire, before completing an executive leadership program at the International Institute of Management Development in Lausanne, Switzerland.
In 2015, he took over as chief executive of Hitachi Consulting Corporation – a subsidiary of the Japanese Hitachi Corporation – having previously been a vice president. He was credited with doubling annual revenues to $1.3billion after taking over.
Mr Abdessamad is also listed as the chief executive of the European and UK arms of Hitachi Consulting.
Prior to 2015 the National Breast Screening System was run by Swiss-based firm Temenos. A spokesman was not available for comment.