IT letting the NHS down?

It's often said that to comment on something you must experience it. Last night and this morning I gained first hand experience of NHS Direct, mobile Paramedics, the Ambulance service and finally Stafford A&E.

Let me thank every one in the respective services. I had a very nasty stomach virus that amongst other things made me feint at various moments throughout yesterday and early this morning.

The care I received was excellent and by 6.00am I was patched up and sent home and I'm just coming round now.

Even in between the feinting the geek in me couldn't help notice that IT doesn't help the people in the NHS. Care policies are implemented consistently throughout the multiple agencies but information sharing clearly isn't.

All agencies asked the exact same questions and recored the answers, clearly highlighting there was no sharing of information. It would be more efficient that once the information is entered into NHS Direct the data gathered flow down to the other agencies.

I'm sure a computer system could be implemented that tracks the patient from start to finish, providing consistent information throughout the case. But could you imagine the NHS trying to implement such a beast?

The numbers already involved in certain key NHS projects are ridiculous and largely a waste of money. My experience of public sector computer projects is deeply frustrating. Departments are over reliant on private sector system integrators and consultancy houses to deliver computer projects .

The major difficulty I see is in the pay and recruitment policies of the government. They seem unable to pay direct employees market rates for their skills. To supplement the public sector skill shortage this creates they rely on the private sector to provide temporary staff at probably double the daily rate of a permenant direct government employee.

And once a private sector firm become embedded into a department's IT service they are almost impossible to remove. Until the government starts paying sensible money for direct staff it will continue to have computer projects that fail.