Scrap NHS IT Waste, Save £12.7bn

The biggest non-military IT project in the world is crashing down around the government's ears, yet ministers are steadfastly squandering billions of pounds of taxpayers cash on the useless NHS white-elephant. 

The government is happy to write a blank cheque for this enormous disaster, as time and again the commons watchdog warns of delays after delays. 

The NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer system, has been dogged by problems since its launch in 2002 in the heyday of New Labour. The biggest non-military IT computer project in the world costs a staggering £12.7 billion and is already more than five years behind schedule. 

The whole project was born during chancellor Brown's boom years, when mesmerised ministers were quite happy to be strung along by slick IT salesman and consultants who promised the earth and delivered nothing. 

The government was hoodwinked by the promise of a revolution using the white heat of information technology and time and again the chickens came home to roost, as many of the big IT projects crashed and burned, ending up as embarrassing financial fiascos. 

Now MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC) have thrown fresh doubts on even a 2015 deadline for the disastrous NHS computer project. 

Its chairman said that even in trusts already using parts of the system, staff were unimpressed and the cost to the NHS was uncertain.

Both the Tories and Labour's left have seized on the project as another example of government waste and have called for the whole project to be scrapped, as minister's attempts to ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system come crashing down around their ears. 

Billions of pounds of tax-payers' money is just going down the drain and into the pockets of the IT consultants, leaving doctors and hospital chiefs trying to get to grips with an unworkable IT system, instead of looking after the welfare of patients.

PAC MPs heard that two out of the four companies producing the NHS system have pulled out and some hospitals have been forced to bring in their own software as they struggle with 'Choose and Book' and '18-week targets'.

Not a single trust in the North, Midlands and East had begun using software for 'care records'  as of the end of last year. Essential systems are late and estimates of local costs are still very unreliable. 

The Orange Party and others have flagged up the NHS computer project as one the most shameful examples of how the government has squandered away public cash. None are more vociferous than David Craig in his detailed financial analysis of government waste - Squandered.

With the country deep in recession, now is the time to take tough decisions on the future of this £12.7 billion waste.

Instead of wandering around in a bemused daze, wasting time launching yet another 'heathstyle initiative', health secretary, Alan Johnson, could do well to get off his backside and get to grips with the problem. 

If he doesn't the Tories will and use it as yet another example of the fine mess the government has got us all into. And who could blame them?

UPDATE 11.19am: Too late for the health secretary. The BBC reports the Conservatives are considering plans for a £100m cap on government IT contracts to prevent "white elephants" such as the NHS computer system.

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£12.7bn Wasted On NHS Computer

Missing from Lord Darzi's big business plan for the NHS in England, was any hint of what to do about the billions of pounds wasted on bureaucracy, top heavy management and, in particular, the disasterous £12.7 billion NHS IT system. The Review, announced yesterday, was a wasted opportunity, with no mention of how to put money saved into better treatment for patients.

The NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer system, launched in 2002 in the heyday of New Labour, is the biggest non-military IT computer project in the world, costing a staggering £12.7 billion and four years behind schedule.

Last month, the head of the NHS, chief executive David Nicholson, told MPs on the public accounts committee he'd rejected calls by 23 leading academics for an independent review of the scheme.

The IT industry's magazine, Computer Weekly, notes that: "Nicholson's arguments against a review of the programme were similar to those put by National Air Traffic Services when its board fought a call for an independent assessment of delayed software to support a new air traffic control centre in Hampshire."

Conservative critics say the government's attempts to "ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system" has come "crashing down around their ears." 

As noted here, billions of pounds of tax-payers' money is just going down the drain and into the pockets of the IT consultants, leaving doctors and hospital chiefs trying to get to grips with an unworkable IT system, instead of looking after the welfare of patients.

The last decade of the New Labour government has seen many the big IT projects crash and burn, with huge IT projects at the MoD and department of work and pensions ending up as embarrassing financial fiascos.

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Leaked NHS Jobs Cut Plan A Sick Joke

A leaked NHS jobs cut report has spread around the media like a rash. The government has been quick to put the patient out of its misery. NHS life is safe in their hands. But patients are getting in the way of political posturing.

The dear old NHS would need to slash its workforce by nearly 140,000 to achieve planned £20 billion savings by 2014, according to the consultants report, leaked to the Health Service Journal (HSJ).

Repeating the tired old argument, this would mean the NHS losing 10 per cent of its workforce. The hard-hitting McKinsey report makes clear cuts would hit front-line staff as well as administrators, coupled with a recruitment freeze and slashing medical school places.

Politically, the report fall-out has something for everyone. There's a nasty government drawing up secret plans to slash spending and jobs in the sacred cow and blowing out of the water claims the NHS is safe in their hands.

But on the other hand, the government has stamped on it in a full media maelstrom without a by-your-leave, to show a caring side. You pays your taxes and takes your choice in the "free" NHS.

There's something fishy about the whole thing. Government health minister, Mike O'Brien, was quick to jump on the caring bandwagon saying ministers have rejected the shocking proposals. Well, at least until after the election.

But the HSJ points out that although the department of health said the report was “purely advice and does not constitute government policy”, it bears the department’s logo and has been shared in secret among senior NHS managers.

The much-repeated mantra of willy-nilly jobs cuts is not the answer to NHS savings or a cure all for the NHS.

There is however an enormous amount of waste and some jobs should go to deliver better patient and medical care. But that should not detract from front-line services.

A start could be made on ridiculously well-paid management, the vast army of administrators, the billions of pounds squandered on a useless NHS computer, the millions wasted on useless public health campaigns - and the millions of pounds spent on IT and management consultants.

The Orange Party is starting to feel quite queasy. Health secretary Andy Burnham should come clean. Just how much cash was thrown at consultants to produce a report which comes up with the bleedin' obvious and the same old answers? And all that for ministers to reject the political hot potato out of hand and say they're busy doing nothing.

The NHS has lost its way and lost sight of its original remit. Once a byword for "free" medical care for all at the point of delivery, billions of pounds are now squandered on top-heavy bureaucratic management and inefficient over-arching structures.

Cash which should be going into medical and patent care is being used to prop up and massage the egos of government ministers and quango cronies playing politics with the NHS and people's lives.

The general election season has opened with bang. The NHS is a key battleground for the high ground but not the only one.

New Labour's dreadful record on jobs, education and the handling of the Afghan War will pop up to take centre stage in the battle for hearts and minds and votes, as a poll in today's Sun reveals.

And there's still nine months tops to go before long-suffering voters have the chance to put the final nail in the coffin of a discredited fag-end government.

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IT's A Disaster

Billions of pounds have been squandered in New Labour's love affair with big, hugely expensive IT computer projects. Can they be that gullible to be taken in by smooth talking IT salesmen?

Like salesmen the world over they promise everything and deliver just a huge hole in the pocket (and nothing on time and on budget). Maybe New Labour just likes spending billions of pounds of our cash. It makes them feel important.

In the last decade of New Labour, we've seen many of them crash and burn. Huge IT projects at the MoD and Dept of Work and Pensions end up as embarrassing financial fiascos.

But it is the NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer that's the big daddy. The biggest non-military IT computer project in the world. Costing a staggering £12.7 billion (and that just the official figure).

The NHS IT programme, launched in 2002 in the heyday of New Labour, is already years late.

Until recently, the whole project was shrouded in secrecy, with all sorts of legal injunctions in place to stop reporting. The National Audit Office (NAO), supposedly the big public spending watchdog (well, big on the its previous bosses' expenses) dithered and delayed any report on progress or cost. 

Now the plans will face further delays after a contract with one of the big three key suppliers was terminated.

The Conservatives say the government's attempts to "ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system" has come "crashing down around their ears". That's putting it mildly.

Why not just scrap it and spend the money on, well, how about the NHS? 

Do something about the filthy wards (whatever happened to Johnson's Deep Clean gimmick - come to think of it whatever happened to Alan Johnson?), the appalling hospital contract food (don't even go there) and the third rate service (because the debt ridden hospitals have to spend the cash on paying off the PFI loans). 

£13 billion of our money down the drain and into the pockets of the international IT consultants. It's enough to make you feel sick.

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IT Waste Tastes Of Snake-Oil

Billions of pounds have been squandered on New Labour's love affair with big expensive IT projects, as gullible ministers were taken in by slick IT salesmen. Now the wheels have fallen off a decade of disaster after taxpayers cash on doomed projects was thrown down the drain.

The white heat of information technology was too hot to handle as ministers stood by and watched IT projects crash and burn, throwing good money after bad to prop up a decade of incompetence.

Time and again the chickens came home to roost, as many of the big IT projects ending up as embarrassing financial fiascos.

Mesmerised ministers were happy to be strung along by slick IT salesman and consultants who promised the earth and delivered nothing. Maybe hoodwinked New Labour liked spending billions of pounds of our cash to make them feel important.

The Independent makes a splash today exposing the £26 billion IT waste with a catalogue of botched projects. Along with a plea to save the whale. Botched IT projects have left taxpayers with an almighty bill for computer systems that have suffered severe delays, run millions of pounds over budget or have been cancelled altogether, reports The independent.

IT consultants have been able to milk the system dry and make a fortune, as off-the-shelf systems were abandoned for bespoke solutions - taking twice as long and twice as expensive.

Nice work if you can get it. Creaming off a fortune and stuffing the place with 'warm bodies' whose job was to keep projects going for as long as possible. Yet banks, supermarkets and stores never seemed to be beset with the same problems as the public sector.

Whitehall is littered with the debris of doomed IT projects. The Orange Party has lost count of the number of times it has highlighted the shambles from way back in May 2008. Taking the lead from vociferous Craig's 'Plundering the public sector' and 'Squandered' with special reports from Private Eye.

The frustrated public accounts committee had actually run out of words to describe the mess.

The Independent has complied a shocking list of New Labour's IT spending spree. From the ill-fated farms subsidies scheme, costing the DEFRA about £350m and leaving farmers more than £1 billion out of pocket. Through to the MoD's defence information infrastructure project, currently running more than £180m over budget, 18 months late and set to cost £7.1 billion.

But the big daddy of all disasters is the NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer, flagged up by the Orange Party and others as one the most shameful examples of how the government has squandered away public cash.

The biggest non-military IT computer project in the world, costing a staggering £12.7 billion, is years behind schedule. Yet ministers steadfastly squandered billions on the useless NHS white-elephant.

Both the Tories and Labour's Left have seized on the project as another example of government waste and have called for the whole project to be scrapped. Minister's attempts to "ram through a top-down, centralised, one-size-fits-all central NHS computer system" have come "crashing down around their ears".

Tax-payers' cash has gone down the drain and into the pockets of IT consultants, leaving doctors and hospital chiefs trying to get to grips with an unworkable IT system, filthy wards and a third rate service from debt ridden hospitals forced to pay off crippling PFI loans.

But the government was happy to write blank cheques for these enormous disasters, as time and again the commons spending watchdog warned of delays after delays, describing projects as "fundamentally flawed" and blaming ministers for "stupendous incompetence" in managing them.

The Independent has found that the total cost of New Labour's 10 most notorious IT failures is equivalent to more than half of the budget for the country's schools last year.

Ministers have been responsible for presiding over one expensive IT disaster after another and blamed for 'stupendous incompetence'. Taxpayers are left with huge bills for bungled projects. Another fine mess of New Labour's own making. What have ministers got to show for years of wasting taxpayers cash? As the Orange Party has said before and The Independent says today: Egg on their faces and a very expensive bottle of snake oil.

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Why Alan Is Banging The Drum For Dave

Hide-away health secretary, Alan Johnson, has been opening his heart to a Sunday newspaper with Confessions Of An Ex-Postman and banging the drum for Tory leader, David Cameron. But why is this beaming working class hero singing Dave's praises? 

On the surface it seems the new Downing Street strategy is, if you can't beat them join them, as Johnson told the Sunday Times: “Cameron’s likeable ... He’s articulate ... He’s a nice guy ... I am sure he is genuine about the NHS,” before laying into Dave with a "killer hug". 

The Orange Party reckons there's a simpler motive at work here. Johnson is hedging his bets and saving his own skin. 

Johnson is MP for Hull West and Hessle, where angry construction workers travelled across to Immingham for the 'British Jobs' refinery strike. He's worried about his voter base, as time and again these solid Labour supporters feel betrayed by Brown and the government. 

Tellingly and ominously, international financial analyst Bloomberg reported to the world this choice quote from a Hull construction worker recently:

“They’ve sold us down the river,” said Charles Hilton, 61, an electrician from Hull in northern England who was out on strike yesterday with local oil-refinery workers. “We’re going to see civil unrest in this country. It’s already started. It will grow unless things are sorted."

Hilton, who calls himself a traditional Labour voter, said he’ll back David Cameron’s opposition Conservative Party in the next election.

As a former postman and union official, Johnson knows too well the mood of the workers. He's biding his time for when the Blairite elite finally get the boot. 

Meanwhile wandering around this whole New Labour thing with a bemused smile, Johnson is contenting himself with yet another meaningless and misleading campaign on obesity. After all, fat is still a political issue and if there's a bandwagon to jump on, let it roll.  

There's clearly something in the water in Hull, as Johnson joins another Hull MP, born again class-warrior and new blogging whizz kid, John Prescott, with outspoken attacks on the greedy bosses and fat cat bonuses.

But Johnson is in danger of disappearing up his own low public profile, happy to let Darzi take the knife to the NHS and as the wasteful disgrace of the £12.7 billion NHS computer comes crashing down around the government's ears. 

Ministers are steadfastly squandering billions of pounds of taxpayers cash on the useless NHS white-elephant, already more than five years behind schedule. 

The Tories already have that NHS Connecting for Health computer firmly in their sights as a prime example of rotten government waste and incompetence. No amount of sucking up to Dave will get the minister ultimately responsible off the hook. 

Nevertheless the Orange Party believes Johnson is one of the very few New Labour ministers who come anywhere close to being a solid, decent bloke. That boy will go far. 

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Join Cuba's Free IT Revolution

Saving cash and breaking Microsoft's stranglehold are not government priorities but it could take a leaf out of Cuba's book, as the country gets to grips with the IT revolution, with plans to run computers on Gates-free, free software. 

In what smacks of a fresh salvo in a new Cold War, the island is following Russia's lead and moving away from Microsoft operating systems with its own take on the free, open source Linux-based system.

Here the government is paying lip-service to open source, vowing to boost its uptake in public services to reduce costs but with little evidence of action. A government 'action plan' is due to be published later this month.

The government's love affair with hugely expensive and utterly useless government IT projects is now beyond a joke, as gullible ministers continue to be taken in by the flannel of slick salesman, who promise the earth and deliver nothing. 

Today the biggest white elephant and biggest IT disaster, the £12.7 billion NHS computer shambles took a further knock, with one hospital trust claiming it's been forced to pump in £10m to prop up the useless system, causing the now all too familiar "heartache and hard work". 

As the NHS's Connecting for Health (CfH) computer system, dogged by problems and more than five years behind schedule, comes crashing down around the government's ears, beavering away in the background is the dominance of Microsoft in government departments and public bodies particularly schools, in return for a whopping licensing fee. 

Microsoft has a clear marketing aim to put its software in every computer in the world and who can blame them? But just because Bill Gates is big buddies with government doesn't mean ministers have to roll over and write a blank cheque with taxpayers cash. 

Computer sales to the public in Cuba only began only last year and the move is all part of a plan for "technological sovereignty".

The country this week launched its own variant of the Linux operating system in the latest fight against what it views as US hegemony.

According to Hector Rodriguez, dean of the School of Free Software at Cuba's University of Information Sciences, about 20 per cent of computers in Cuba, are currently using Linux. 

"I would like to think that in five years our country will have more than 50 per cent migrated to Linux," he said.

In Cuba it makes sense. The long-standing US trade embargo against the communist island makes it difficult for Cubans to get Microsoft software legally, as Castro's kid brother Raul tries to bring the country into the 20th century. 

But the movement towards free, open source operating systems and software has dedicated supporters throughout the world. 

Moving away from Microsoft is not pie in the sky. It's happening already in the new breed of Netbooks now on sale in the High Street. It makes sound economic sense as any issues over compatibility can be easily fixed. 

Rodriguez said free software better suits Cuba's world view: "The free software movement is closer to the ideology of the Cuban people, above all for the independence and sovereignty."

Now that's a tad controversial coming from a left-wing dictatorship but anything that's free and puts the brakes on Microsoft's plans for world domination is worth a serious look. 

Hasta La Victoria Siempre. 

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Wasteful Govt Computer Says Nein

Government waste and crap computer systems reached a new low today with revelations that a transport department 'efficiency drive' will end up costing taxpayers £81m. The commons watchdog has branded it "stupendously incompetent". And to make matters worse - the damn computer speaks German. 

Public accounts committee (PAC) chairman, Edward Leigh, said it was one of the worst cases of project management he had seen.

The Swansea department of transport payroll and admin centre was originally down to cost £55m leading to £112m savings.

But the programme will now cost £121m and save £40m, meaning taxpayers will have to make up the difference, as £81m is poured down the drain.

MPs were told the new computer system had even issued messages in German.

PAC seems to be running out of words to describe government IT scandals but they threw the dictionary at this cock-up. The project had been "rushed through", deadliness "overly optimistic" and the result was "lamentable". 

The computer system was "inadequately procured and tested, resulting in an unstable set-up when it was switched on." 

Of course no-one has been disciplined yet alone fired over the scandal. And no government minister has crawled out of the woodwork to issue even the slightest apology, explanation or take any of the blame. 

Even that is small fry compared with the NHS's multi-billion pound Connecting for Health (CfH) computer system. The biggest non-military IT computer project in the world, is set to become the biggest IT disaster in the world, costing a staggering £12.7 billion and four years behind schedule. When will they ever learn?

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Obama's Pork Pie In The Sky Package

Obama's $789 billion pork and pie in the sky dream rushed through Congress is being sold as an 'economic stimulus' when it is a spending bill which will saddle US taxpayers with massive debt for years to come. As Democrats embark on a huge spending spree for their pet projects, the measures have been slammed as a monumental waste of public cash. Now where have we heard that before? 

The package has been wrapped up in pretty pink ribbon and sold to the American people like soap powder, as the new president pushed through the spending spree with evangelical zeal. 

But disturbingly, there's no bi-partisan support, with Republicans and a handful of Democrats voting against it. As usual the devil is in the detail. 

The 1,071 page, 8-inch-thick stimulus/spending Bill has a welcome $281 billion in tax cuts but that's peanuts. More than a half-trillion dollars is earmarked for government spending on infrastructure, health care bureaucracy and state governments. 

At the heart is whether these measures will dig the US out of deep recession, create jobs and expand the economy. Some think it's garbage.

Borrowing from Winston Churchill, one Republican remarked: "Never have so few spent so much so quickly to do so little."

As the package did its rounds, the wording of the spinners on jobs carefully changed. Now it's 3.5 million jobs "that we look forward to saving or creating." 

The entire mess will eventually cost not $789 billion but $3.27 trillion when $744 billion in debt service and $2.5 trillion in spending over the next 10 years is included. And that will cost every US family almost $10,000 in added debt. 

The monster is full of pork-barrel politics.

$2 billion to Obama's favourite "community" group ACORN, that's accused of voter registration fraud, $30 million to Nancy Pelosi's pet project to restore wetlands and save the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, another $1 billion for a Prevention and Wellness Fund.

Tens of billions will be spent on high-speed rail lines but only in key politically sensitive areas. And vote-catching broadband for everyone in rural areas

Take away the pork and the dollars left over for small-business tax relief amount to only "about one-third of 1% of the total bill," a mere $3 billion out of a $789 billion package. There are no tax cuts to boost investment.

The bulk of the spending comes not right away when the economy needs a boost, but in the dim and distant future. 

Japan, spent $6.3 trillion on infrastructure in the 1990s and racked up the biggest debt in the developed world. Yet all that spending failed to pull Japan out of its slump.

Sure as eggs is eggs, Obama will have to return to the trough, demanding more taxpayer cash. 

But the Obama administration is betting the relative small amount combining tax cuts with spending on unemployment assistance, social security and the Medicaid health program will stop the economy's spiralling decline. Sure that makes people feel better, but it won't boost the economy. 

Schools would receive $70 billion to prevent cutbacks and repair crumbling schools. There's about $50 billion for energy efficiency programs and renewable energy. It's all starting to sound eerily familiar. 

Many have already pointed out a whole raft of of questionable spending, including a massive Federal health care computer system - modelled on our own disastrous £12.7 billion NHS computer shambles - only bigger. 

Speaking for the first time since his presidential defeat, Republican John McCain said: "This measure contains much that is not stimulative and is nothing short—nothing short—of generational theft since it burdens future generations with so much debt."

Why should anyone care about a reckless spending spree across the Pond which will plunge the nation deeper in debt? Because that's exactly what Brown and his hapless chancellor are planning over here, as they face up to disaster in the June elections. 

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