Where does all the money go?

Private Eye - System Failure

A fascinating report in this week’s Private Eye on New Labour’s disastrous mismanagement of the NHS computer systems.

“Waste and inefficiency in the NHS is intolerable. A penny wasted is a penny stolen from a patient.” (Patricia Hewitt)

This is the story of the theft of 1,240,000,000,000 pennies from patients through an IT project that wasn’t wanted and doesn’t work. (Private Eye)

Dr Crippen has a problem visualising large numbers. £12.4 billion sounds a lot. But how big is big? What could you do with £12.4 billion. Private Eye comes to the rescue:

£12.4 billion would pay for 26,000 doctors for ten years.

Those of us working within the NHS have long been aware of the futility and waste of this IT system. The details that emerge from the Private Eye report reveal a tale of incompetence and greed that beggars belief. Incompetence on the part of the government, and greed on the part of some of the contractors, two of whom are named by the report. Both made personal profits of over £20 million on the back of inflated share sales and illusory profits generated by Enron style accounting.

But it is still hard to get one's mind round £12.4 billion. So let us look at a specific example that demonstrates the government obsession with the process of health care, rather than health care itself. It is only a small example. It probably only cost the taxpayer a few million pounds.

The NHS National Centre for Involvement is based at the University of Warwick. The director has an American accent and a beard. Perfect. Listen carefully. This is what they do:



Dr Crippen has watched it three times, and still has not the remotest idea what the National Centre for Involvement really does. Can anyone help?

So I went to their website, and found both a summary of their business plan and a flow chart.

The Mission Statement of the NHS National Centre for Involvement is to:

1. Promote the value of patient and public involvement
2. Create a one-stop shop for information and advice on patient and public involvement
3. Build the capacity of organisations, staff and patient-citizens for high quality patient and public involvement
4. Develop and disseminate practical resources that aid patient and public involvement. Generate evidence-based models and examples of best practice
5. Identify and maximise learning opportunities at a national, regional and local level
6. Develop and facilitate networks and communities of interest
7. Become an exemplar of a responsive and inclusive organisation

I hope that is all clear now.

This is where the taxpayer’ money has gone. This is why real health care is having to be rationed to “balance the books” and save Patricia Hewitt’s political life.