The grubby day-to-day frustrations of digital change in Whitehall

Change is hard. Few business or IT leaders would disagree with such a statement. But learning the lessons from change should be the easy and obvious outcome. Failing to learn the lessons from change even after those lessons have been repeatedly expressed as a result of repeated problems can...
The state of NHS IT? Ring a random NHS trust and see if they have IT problems – it worked for us

We'd like to let you in on a little secret.
In the past week, Computer Weekly uncovered IT problems at two NHS trusts in the north-west of London. In one, medical...
The simple answer to bad suppliers: don’t buy from them anymore

So we added another paragraph to the eternal tale of government IT woes this week, with the news that the Home office e-Borders programme to secure Britain's...
10 years tickling the toes of NHS IT suppliers

When Richard Granger, then the director-general of NHS IT, signed the contracts for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in 2003, he famously promised he would hold the suppliers' "feet to the fire."
Ten years on, it's clear that the contracts instead called for the NHS to rub their...
When will politicians end their ‘public sector bad – private sector good’ mantra?

Will we ever kill once and for all the idea that the private sector can do anything the public sector can do, but do it better and cheaper?
We're in a strange spiral at the moment where the government is dogmatically attempting to contract out to companies as many public services as it...
It is patently obvious the NHS must have online patient records

The issue of electronic patient records in the NHS is back in the headlines after health secretary Jeremy Hunt called for the health service to...
Everybody lost in NHS IT disaster

A degree of ironic congratulation is due to the Department of Health (DoH) and Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude for finally extricating the NHS from its disastrous contract with...
NHS IT managers finally get their chance to shine

My leader article in Computer Weekly this week should have been easy to write. It's about the new NHS IT strategy, and it would be a simple task to cut and paste pretty much every similar article about
So, David Cameron, still think Google Health could be used in NHS IT?

Google quietly announced at the end of last week that it plans to "retire" - shut down - its Google Health online medical records service.
This may not, at first, appear especially relevant to the UK, since the service was specifically targeted at US citizens with the unique challenges...
NHS IT needs better care than the unlamented National Programme

At Computer Weekly, we've loved the NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT), it's been such a great source of articles and of ideas for these leader columns in its long existence. Of...