Today’s announcement by the Department of Health that NPfIT is to be replaced by a new, decentralised approach will be welcomed by many NHS IT managers.
The move looks set to give control over their own systems back to them, whilst maintaining access to the NPfIT features that have found favour, like Choose and Book, PACS and electronic prescribing.
The new, modular approach announced by the DH will also help to encourage localised IT investment and approaches that will directly benefit individual NHS organisations – such as patient-level costing and improved business intelligence tools. It’s hoped that some of the £700M NPfIT savings can be re-invested in these local initiatives.
Looking back to 2003, when NPfIT began, many of the IT developments we take for granted today were far from mainstream – such as widespread broadband access and interconnectivity. It was the best idea at the time, and of course IT futures are hard to predict. We now know that systems interoperability and access doesn’t require such a prescriptive, rigid approach.
As health minister Simon Burns put it in his statement: “Localised decision making and responsibility will create fresh ways of ensuring that clinicians and patients are involved in planning and delivering front line care and driving change.” Let’s hope that this is truly the case.
