There have been 141 patient administration systems deployments in total, including 43 in acute hospitals, 23 in mental health trusts and 75 in primary care trusts.
I thank the Minister for that ingenious reply, but the Financial Times last week said of the new systems that in the north, planned implementation has not happened and in the south, the contractor has been fired, and that hospital bosses generally believe that the project is near to death. Which bit of “not working” does the Minister not understand? Is it not time for a review?
No; the hon. Gentleman is getting confused between full implementation and connection with the national spine in acute trusts, and the implementation of patient administration systems in general, in many cases, which has been very successful. We acknowledge that there are problems; there are always problems with computer systems on such a massive scale—the biggest IT programme in the world. There have been problems with its introduction in acute trusts, which have between 40 and 60 systems of their own, but we are working very hard, including with his local acute trust, with the provider and with Connecting for Health, to try to resolve the problems as soon as possible.
How necessary does my hon. Friend believe it to be, particularly in acute trusts, for the patient administration systems to be capable of passing on electronically patient discharge notes, so that we do not wait days and days when patients are back in the community, but wait seconds?
My right hon. Friend makes a very important point in highlighting one of the real benefits of a computerised health care system, not only regarding discharge notes, but so that clinicians can exchange in real-time information about patients. Any hon. Member who has visited any systems that are already up and running successfully will have heard not just from patients but from doctors and other health professionals about the benefits that they bring to patient care.
Can the Minister confirm that one of the risks that the Royal Free hospital has identified is that some of its patients may be exposed to a double dose in the radiology department because of flaws in the Cerner Millennium system?
That is one of the reasons why the implementation at the Royal Free hospital has been stopped for the time being. Active discussions have been going on between the strategic health authority in London, Connecting for Health and the Royal Free to ensure that exactly what the hon. Gentleman fears could happen, could not do so. That is why the system has not been carried forward at this time.
The patient administration system is not the only one going wrong in the health service at the moment. Has the Minister had any opportunity to review the progress being made with choose and book? Does he understand the very significant difficulties that it causes for the very many people who do not find the system at all customer friendly?
On the contrary, in many parts of the country, choose and book is operating extremely successfully. It is one of the great success stories of the national programme for IT. However, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that in some primary care trust areas, performance is quite unacceptable. We are working very closely with those primary care trust laggards who are not performing very well on choose and book to ensure that they come up to the performance standards of others.
With £12 billion at risk, choose and book, and electronic prescriptions, still 50 per cent. and 75 per cent. behind the Government’s target for completion last year, and fewer than 0.5 per cent. of electronic records uploaded against their target of 100 per cent. by next month, will the Minister say how many lives have been lost, delays suffered and mistakes made—affecting patients and their loved ones—that would have been avoided but for his Government’s ongoing failure to design and implement a health care IT system on time and that works?
The hon. Gentleman knows quite well that the £14 billion is not at risk, because he knows that one very important part of the contract—
It is £12 billion.
Or the £12 billion. The hon. Gentleman knows that one very important part of the contract is that the costs of any delay are incurred by the supplier not by the taxpayer. That is a result of the excellent contract that the Government drew up. He knows also that the independent National Audit Office confirmed in its report earlier this year that progress was being made in all parts of the programme, and that that was bringing real benefits in terms of in-patient care, saving lives and saving taxpayers’ money.
Will the Minister investigate the London teaching hospitals, some of which are abusing choose and book, and even ignoring it in some cases? The Healthcare Commission is aware of the issue. It is a scandal; it is the fiddling of figures, and it is now time that the Minister, or the Secretary of State for Health himself, undertook a search and scratched the surface on the matter. London teaching hospitals are abusing the system.
I shall certainly look into the points that my hon. Friend raises, but he is right to raise the concerns that were expressed on the publication a couple of weeks ago of the Healthcare Commission’s annual health check, which highlighted, as I said in response to a question from the Liberal Democrat Benches, the very big variability in the performance of PCTs and trusts on the use of choose and book. That is completely unacceptable, and I shall look into the matters that my hon. Friend raises.