Fiasco as NHS 24 axes new £117m computer system
A NEW £117million computer system at NHS 24 has been scrapped only days after it was launched amid fears that lives could be put at risk this winter. Embarrassed bosses yesterday announced they have reverted to the previous set-up after the new service failed to cope with emergency calls.
Staff were forced to use pen and paper to record callers’ symptoms following a crash on its first day of operation.
Health chiefs realised they could not guarantee patient safety if the number of calls explodes during cold winter weekends. If the call-handling process were to collapse, there would be the risk of missing a life-threatening emergency.
Work is to be carried out to fix the problems and relaunch the IT system, called the Future Programme, early next year.
But there are now fears this will lead to further costs to the public purse, while pressure will mount on the firm behind the software, Capgemini.
A statement from NHS 24 said: ‘On the grounds of patient safety, NHS 24 has today withdrawn its Future Programme from service and moved back to its legacy system.
‘In spite of a huge amount of planning, system testing and staff training, the performance of the service over the past ten days since going live has proved extremely challenging.’
The decision came just two days after NHS 24 insisted call-handling procedures were ‘operational’.
The new system was finally switched on – £41.6million over budget and more than two years late – at the end of October.
During its first day it coped with non-emergency patients but, when doctors’ surgeries closed at 6pm and 111 emergency calls were put through, it fell apart.
Last night, Scottish Tory health spokesman Jackson Carlaw said: ‘This is a staggering development which is going to cost the NHS and, as a result, the taxpayer a fortune.
‘From teething problems to outright collapse in a matter of days after its introduction. That this could have been so badly managed after all the lessons supposedly learned from previous disasters is beyond belief.
‘This time there is no pointing the finger at previous governments, this is a programme the SNP has overseen.’ He added: ‘Nicola Sturgeon has to explain exactly why this has been allowed to happen, why she and her ministers have presided over such a mismanaged shambles and what she intends to do to fix it.’
Scottish Labour public services spokesman Jackie Baillie said: ‘The SNP’s short-term, sticking plaster approach to the NHS just isn’t good enough.’
The Scottish Government had to loan NHS 24 £20million to bail out the failed telecommunications system. The helpline, which provides advice for patients out of hours and refers them to doctors, was losing £450,000 a month for each of the 30 months it overran from the planned start date in June 2013.
Originally projected to cost £75.8million, the new system overshot its budget by 55 per cent. Its cost when it opened stood at £117.4million.
Of the £20.75million lent to NHS 24 by the Scottish Government, only £400,000 has been paid back so far.
Health Secretary Shona Robison said: ‘NHS 24 and their free 111 telephone number remain fully operational and people should not hesitate in making use of this important service.’
On the decision to ‘pause’ the Future Programme, she said: ‘While disappointing, patient safety must always be the number one priority and it’s right that NHS 24 take the time necessary to understand and fix any outstanding problems completely.’
NHS 24 chief executive Ian Crichton said: ‘Major IT upgrades always bring a degree of challenge, but what makes implementation of our new technology solution unusually difficult is the need to keep patients safe while we get it fully operational.
‘As winter approaches we expect weekend call volumes to significantly increase and our forecast indicates that service levels at weekends would fall below acceptable tolerances.
‘It is for this reason we have taken the decision today to roll back.
‘While we will maintain the delivery of safe care to patients, we will continue to develop the new system offline and renew preparations to reintroduce the solution in early 2016.’
Asked to comment, a Capgemini spokesman said all inquiries were being handled by NHS 24.
‘So badly mishandled it is beyond belief’
DILIGENCE, carefully and persistently working away at the business of improving life for citizens, is pivotal to a government’s success.
What, then, to make of the news that a new £117million computer system at NHS 24 has been shut down just over a fortnight after it was launched because it risked patient safety? Where were Health Secretary Shona Robison and the SNP when the system headed for a two-year over-run and a £41.6million overspend?
Were they so incompetent that they failed to take action? Or were they so distracted by the SNP’s separation fixation that they missed the chance to get a grip and protect taxpayers’ money and patient care?
Things were so bad that the Scottish Government had to lend NHS 24 £20million to bail out the failed system.
Jaw-dropping stuff from a party which styled itself ‘guardians of the NHS’ in the independence referendum. The Nationalists even, preposterously, said they would use their MPs to protect the NHS in England. On this showing, the NHS south of the Border has had a lucky escape.
Once again, the gulf between Nationalist rhetoric and the reality experienced by Scottish families is exposed.
While shroud-waving about Tory cuts, the SNP has presided over a 0.8 per cent increase on health spending. The bogeyman Tories have increased the spend by 4 per cent in England and Wales.
At education, at justice and now at health, Nicola Sturgeon’s inept ministers are failing the diligence test. The travesty is that the public, and not the feather-bedded politicians, are suffering as a result.