Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-262)
DEPARTMENT OF
HEALTH, PROFESSOR
PETER HUTTON
AND DR
ANTHONY NOWLAN
26 JUNE 2006
Q260 Mr Bacon: Is it not correct
that Sir John Pattison said in a speech the following March, a
month later, that the programme would last two years and nine
months?
Mr Granger: In March 2002?
Q261 Mr Bacon: Starting from April
2003 it would last two years and nine months. That was the maximum
he was able to get, so it should have been finished by December
2005, should it not?
Mr Granger: I am sorry but I was
obsessed with congestion charging in March 2002.
Q262 Chairman: So nobody can tell
us about the two years and nine months yet, but you are going
to send us a note.
Sir Ian Carruthers: We shall try
to clarify that. [20]
Chairman: Let me try to sum up. The NHS
chose a very ambitious system, a top-down system, a system with
some positive elements: professional control, clear leadership,
paying companies only for what they can deliver. However, as we
know, the NHS is a micro system with hundreds of trusts and thousands
of clinicians, nurses and GPs. Here the Report and the evidence
of your own GPs and what Sir John has said to us in evidence and
the experience of Members in their constituencies show that it
is not yet working fully on the ground. So the recommendations
in this report and the recommendations we shall make are vitally
important. We expect you Sir Ian to implement them and we shall
ask the NAO to report on your progress in another PAC meeting.
Thank you very much.
20 Note by witness: The timescales for delivering
the National Programme for IT were set out in June 2002 in Delivering
21st Century IT Support for the NHS. There has never been
a plan to deliver the Programme within two years and nine months.
In line with standard government practice, some of the parliamentary
statements referred to the financial allocations made under SR
2002 due the first three years of the Programme. This was always
in the context of a longer and larger Programme. Back
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