The NHS is set to miss the deadline for implementing its flagship Choose and Book electronic hospital appointment selection system, according to a National Audit Office report expected tomorrow.
The watchdog is anticipated to report that some NHS trusts will not be able to offer patients and GPs a choice of date and hospital by December 2005. It will also criticise the speed with which the network of support systems is being implemented. A leaked letter from Margaret Edwards, director of access at the Department of Health, to health authority chiefs also predicts that some areas will not have fully integrated systems.
The system is a core part of the multibillion-pound national programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT). Last week the minister responsible for the NPfIT, John Hutton, and the director general of NHS IT, Richard Granger, spoke publicly about the system’s benefits. Meanwhile, NHS IT directors complained to Computer Weekly that they were expected to implement expensive and unwieldy interim software to meet John Reid’s commitment. The health secretary is expected to robustly defend the policy of providing choice when the NAO report is published.