Granger rounds on critics of £6.2bn NHS IT programme

NHS IT chief Richard Granger rounded on critics of the £6.2bn health service IT programme and singled out sections of the media as the biggest threat to its success.

Speaking at the Government UK IT Summit in London today, Granger asked that he and his team "be given the space to get on successfully with what we have been doing for the last 18 months."

He hit out critics for scaremongering and revelling in a culture of failed government IT projects.

"I'd like to draw a line under that can of scaremongering," he said. "As a country we're quite embarrassed about things working and going OK. We're much more comfortable with an alternative scenario."

He accused some sections of the media of "making a living out of commentary on failure" and said the allegation levelled against the NHS of secrecy around the IT programme is unjustified.

"One of the things I find repugnant is this continuous charge of secrecy. I don't know any public sector programme that has been as open as us," he said. "We've been bedevilled by that and that is a far greater risk than any of the other engineering and change risks which we are managing."

The PACS imaging system contract for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) was awarded yesterday and Granger said the rest of the contracts are still on schedule, with the e-booking system now in testing ahead of its live launch this summer.

He revealed that £500m of software build activity "from Chennai to Seattle" from a variety of suppliers is scheduled for this year along with the migration to the new NHS network and the first phase of the national care record system.

"By next year over half of the NHS will have seen something new and improved deployed," he said.

The Government UK IT Summit was also hit today by loud protests outside the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair by a group protesting about "services not systems" and calling for more cash to be put directly into frontline services.

But during his speech, Granger said the modernisation of NHS IT systems and the ability to make vital information available instantly will actually save lives.

"It is a fantastic opportunity for information to improve patient safety. The consequences of information not being available at the point of care are that bad things happen," he said.