Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Tuesday 6 March 2007, 10:56 AM
NPfIT doublespeak of the day
A couple of days ago the Guardian ran a story alleging that the NHS was seeking "alternative software suppliers" for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), following a less than sterling performance from subcontracted suppliers iSoft and Cerner.
Naturally we rang Connecting for Health to check this out, and duly received a reply denying the Guardian's angle completely. "We anticipate that we will be advertising through normal competitive public sector procurement rules to put in place framework contracts to ensure there is an available supply route of additional capacity [my italics] and availability of resources to the NHS to meet future needs if required". Right, so additional capacity not replacement. OK. We'll see.
What got me was the marvellously disingenuous bit at the bottom of the reply: "Already we have seen the large scale delivery of systems which are providing better, quicker, safer healthcare, many of which have been on time and all of which are either on or under budget."
In other words, nothing that's already been delivered has been over budget, but CfH are conveniently leaving out the natural flipside to that. What about everything - and we're talking significant majority here - that hasn't been delivered yet? How's the budget doing on that?
PreviousComments on this post
"What got me was the marvellously disingenuous bit at the bottom of the reply: "Already we have seen the large scale delivery of systems which are providing better, quicker, safer healthcare, many of which have been on time and all of which are either on or under budget."
What is the evidence (as we are all required to follow evidence these days..) for this statement, and what has been included?
Does it, for example, include the additional costs to Trusts prevented from purchasing a system suitable for the needs of that Trust - or, indeed, for the costs of extending contracts for obsolete systems, while waiting for interminably delayed installation of CfH systems which *still* don't "do what it says on the tin"?
Just a thought: is any of the financial mess in the NHS due to CfH?
After all, this program is being paid for somewhere!
