NHS Project For IT Going Awfully Wrong?

The Labour government's £12.7 billion IT scheme for the NHS (National Health Service) is apparently on the verge of collapsing right before the elections, as the government has failed to successfully install the software developed to link all the hospitals for better efficiency.

The Guardian has reported that delays in installing the core care records in the hospitals across the nation under the NHS IT scheme has reached a critical tipping point as the pressure from the opposition and the government administration coming down hard on the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust.

This particular NHS Trust has been given the responsibility to install the new NHS patient administration software, called Lorenzo, which has been delayed for the past 4 years.

The Department of Health had set the deadline for installing the software for March 2010, last April, and had indicated that the department will look for a new plan to induce IT into the county's health care system if Lorenzo does not show 'significant progress'.

When asked about the patient safety measures taken by the NHS IT program, Morecambe Bay NHS Trust chief executive Tony Halsall said in a statement that “Throughout the entire project, patient safety has always been our top priority and we have developed a rigorous testing regime as part of the project.”