Archive for the ‘Telegraph’ tag
Coverage of NHS IT programme lacks balance
Does coverage of the NHS IT programme seem a little one-sided? In The Telegraph today we read the ‘£20bn NHS computer system “doomed to fail”‘. In The Times, David Rose writes about how the ‘£6.2bn IT scheme for NHS “is not working and is not going to work”‘. Both are quoting Andrew Rollerson, an executive with Fujitsu, one of the companies developing the IT programme (NPfIT). But Rollerson’s criticisms (you can see his whole presentation linked to The Telegraph article) are not balanced by comments from others. The Times simply notes at the end of its article that ‘Connecting for Health declined to comment’. But just in case you were unsure about how serious the problem is a second Times article, beside the first, tells us that ‘Faulty software puts child health at risk’. The Telegraph quotes the Department of Health saying how important the programme is, but has no quotes or information from anyone who can speak directly to Rollerson’s criticisms.
Fujitsu has now issued a response – which can be seen on the Newscounter website – saying that Rollerson is not working on the NHS IT project and that ‘His comments have been taken out of context and abridged to misrepresent what was actually said’.
We have yet to hear from the head of the programme, Richard Granger. Granger did, however, write a piece last November – not reported in the general press, for the Journal of the American Medical Association. The article titled ‘Information Technology in the English National Health Service’ (requires registration), quotes the National Audit Office as saying that ‘substantial progress had been made but significant challenges remain’, and reasserts this in the conclusion. But it also concludes that the greatest challenge is ‘the human processes that need to change to accomodate the IT revolution’ and that the programme has to ‘win the support of staff’ to be successful. It won’t win that support if everyone believes it’s ‘doomed to fail’.
