In sickness or in health? [National Health Service IT programme]

The National Health Service is spending billions of pounds trying to cure its IT woes. The NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is the largest single civil IT programme in the world. It is complex, involving new technologies and working practices. It is being driven at high speed, to tight, politically-driven deadlines reaching from 2004 to 2010. The team has set new standards in procurement, project management and the application of rigorous engineering standards to large-scale government IT. While not everyone is convinced - the British Computer Society´s healthcare informatics committee and the British Medical Association have both raised concerns - the programme is being watched closely by government departments in the UK and overseas.