NHS to get £83m IT cash boost

Health Secretary Alan Milburn today pledged an extra £83m to NHS IT as part of a wider cash injection into the health service.

Speaking directly after Microsoft chairman Bill Gates to an invited audience of NHS Trust CEOs, he said the country's health service had suffered too long from continual under-investment in IT.

Milburn said the new funds will be 'earmarked' for IT to prevent the money being used by hard-pressed doctors for other things. He admitted he had made a mistake by not ensuring last year's £1bn NHS IT was spent on IT.

Earlier in the meeting Kingston and Richmond Health Authority CEO Dr Richard Gibbs claimed three quarters of the money had leaked out and been used to help meet other needs, such as waiting list targets.

Milburn also urged NHS Trust CEOs to institute a 'cultural change' in the way IT is viewed in the health service, to make it central to NHS strategy.

"We are going to have to be much more IT-driven if we are going to provide patients with the services we want. We just haven't done enough so far, and now I'm trying to correct that.

"IT is not a bolt-on, it's not a luxury - it's absolutely part and parcel of everything we are trying to do," he said.

Milburn praised the recent desktop contract with Microsoft as an example of how the NHS should be buying IT - making savings by purchasing centrally - saying it had saved the NHS £50m in one fell swoop.

He said the government is currently working out future deals with Cisco, LockHeed Martin, Microsoft, Novell and the Sema Group to provide more systems.

Gates' address gave delegates a view of how Microsoft software - particularly .NET - might be used to benefit the NHS.

The government has attracted criticism for the nature of its relationship with Microsoft, alongside concerns that its record on IT security isn't good enough to deal with sensitive data such as patient records.