Doctors "almost in tears" over NPfIT system

At the British Medical Association's annual representative meeting in Liverpool Dr Paul Flynn of the BMA's Central Consultants and Specialists Committee said he had been brought in to help doctors at the Royal Free Hospital in London following the implementation of Cerner Millennium.

E-Health Insider reports his saying: "I saw doctors who were enthusiasts for IT turning to complete despair. I have seen doctors almost in tears because of how frustrated they are at being prevented from doing their jobs by the IT system."

The Department of Health and the London Programme for IT are planning to roll out the Cerner Millennium system to other trusts in London.

To deflect criticism that the centralist approach to the NPfIT is failing, the unofficial strategy of Whitehall officials is to blame trusts for the implementation problems and to say each time that the lessons are being learned.
But the Department of Health gave a written assurance to Public Accounts Committee MP Richard Bacon in 2007 that the lessons from the implementation of Cerner Millennium at the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in December 2005 had been learned.

Bacon had asked the Department whether any of the problems encountered by the Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre were expected to occur at future Cerner deployments. The Department's written response to the Public Accounts Committee in April 2007 was: "No. We will support the local NHS and ensure that problems are not repeated."

The Royal Free went live with Cerner in June 2008.