NHS goes big on IT

Plans for the NHS dominated today's budget coverage. At the centre of the debate on the UK's state health service is the belief that it has to be run more efficiently, not just with more money. And that's where IT comes in.

The Wanless Report on rejuvenating the NHS calls for a doubling of IT spend, yet the irony is that the more politicians and civil servants look to IT as some kind of panacea (no pun intended), the more worried they must get.

Implementing IT effectively in Europe's largest organisation is very hard, to say the least. What does a minister do when faced with terms and operational dilemmas that arguably equal any of those facing doctors and other healthcare professionals?

The answer - at least recently - has been that he or she turns to the largest IT vendors. Big names such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle stand to do very well out of recent public sector contracts, including those with the NHS. The government, for its part, argues it is striking good licensing deals and tapping the best expertise in the world.

Users in healthcare and independent experts see things differently. In the face of increasing centralisation, one GP and IT specialist pointed out to silicon.com that most examples of NHS IT success have been run at a local level.

What chance now a wireless LAN connecting Linux-based servers in a rural backwater revolutionising local patient care?

Wanless and others will argue centralisation ensures quality of service and systems that talk to one another. As ever, it's a case of trusting users - in this case, healthcare professionals and their support staff - with the equipment and the funds.

Will that happen? We doubt it. Expect more work for the big vendors.