NHS Executive criticised over £32m system

A UK government report has accused the NHS Executive of bungling the implementation of a computerised medical coding system.

The Read Codes - a clinical coding system developed by Dr James Read in the early 1980s - has cost the NHS £32m so far, and only 12 hospitals are using it. Now, the future of the coding system is in question.

The Public Accounts Select Committee report criticised the Executive for putting Dr Read in an untenable position. He was a chief executive in the NHS when he was paid £1.25m for his codes in 1990, and his company -Computer Aided Medical Systems - is in charge of implementing the codes in the NHS.

Faced with a large proportion of the cost of the project still to come, the committee suggested: "It is important that the NHS Executive should not feel locked into using the Read Codes because they have already spent so much money on them."

The NHS Executive has consented to an independent evaluation of the Read Codes. But the committee insists the scandal calls into question much more than the Executive's handling of the single Read Codes project. "This failure reinforces our concerns on other NHS information technology projects, such as the development of hospital information systems."