To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he and his officials have made of the effect on (a) patient services, (b) procurement costs and (c) IT system suppliers of the time taken between submission of the first draft of full business cases for NHS hospital trust computer systems to NHS regional offices and approval of the final version of full business cases by the NHS executive. [153094]
[holding answer 9 March 2001]: No assessment has been made of the effect of the time taken between submission of the first drafts of full business cases (FBCs) for National Health Service hospital trust computer systems to NHS executive regional offices and approval of the final versions of those FBCs by the NHS executive. FBCs are approved as quickly as is consistent with the need to ensure that the proposed investment is affordable and represents value for money to the taxpayer.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health what his estimate is of the average time taken between submission of the first draft of full business cases for NHS hospital trust computer systems to NHS regional offices and approval of the final version of full business cases by the NHS executive. [153093]
[holding answer 9 March 2001]: The Department has approved eight full business cases (FBC) for hospital computer systems where the first draft of the FBC was submitted to the regional offices of the national health service executive on or after December 1998. On average, each of these FBCs was approved four months
| NHS trust | Type of investment | Date of submission of first draft of full business case to the regional office | Date of approval by regional office (and NHS Executive Headquarters where appropriate) | Time between submission of first draft of FBC and approval of final version |
| Morecambe Bay Hospitals NHS Trust | Patient Administration System | December 1998/January 1999 | January 1999 | 1 month |
| Royal Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust | Integrated Patient Management System | December 1998/January 1999 | August 1999 | 8 months |
| Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Trust | Order Comms/Results Reporting and Departmental systems | January 1999 | February 1999 | 1 month |
| Bolton Hospital NHS Trust | Patient Administration System and some departmental systems | October 1999 | December 1999 | 2 Months |
| North Durham Health Care NHS Trust | Picture Archiving and Communication System | April 2000 | August 2000 | 4 Months |
| Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust | Patient Administration System | April 2000 | September 2000 | 5 months |
| Calderdale Healthcare NHS Trust | Picture Archiving and Communication System | June 2000 | November2000 | 5 months |
| Luton and Dunstable Hospital NHS Trust | Electronic Patient Records | July 2000 | December 2000 | 5 months |