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Great Britain health secretary John Reid, announced a five-year contract worth £ 64.5m for SchlumbergerSema to run an England-wide system that will allow GPs to book hospital appointments online. It is the first major contract to be awarded in the £2.3bn national programme for IT (NPfIT) in the National Health Service. The National Electronic Booking System would be a revolutionary step in creating an NHS that was truly patient-centred, he said. By 2005 patients would no longer have to wait weeks to receive a notice of a consultation on a date that was inconvenient; appointments would be booked online at a time and location to suit the patient, he said. INSETS: Measuring success: what if GPs do not use the system?;The NHS national programme for IT: key dates;How much will the national programme cost?.

The article focuses on the national programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) in Great Britain, which was launched three years back with the publication of a strategy document "21st Century IT." It was warned at the time that it was an extraordinarily ambitious programme given that the British Department of Health had failed to implement successfully much smaller, national technology-based schemes. Now an authoritative paper, published by the British Medical Journal last week on the NPfIT, has raised some structural concerns about the project. One of their most important suggestions is that Connecting for Health, which runs the NPfIT, improves communication by listening as well as talking. Many trusts and GP practices are taking part in implementations of national systems and those running the scheme should be congratulated for helping to ensure that it is perceived by NHS boards of directors as an important initiative. With more than 6bn pound of taxpayers' money invested in the national programme, Connecting for Health needs all the credibility it can muster.

The article discusses the reasons behind the refusal of most general practitioners (GPs) in Great Britain to use the Choose and Book system. Topics discussed include GPs' opinion that the system was not fully integrated with existing systems and never worked very quickly, plans of the National Health Services (NHS) to replace Choose and Book with the e-Referral Service by the end of 2014 and the need for the e-Referral system to be easier for patients to use.

The article focuses on the growing concerns among general practitioners (GPs) in Great Britain on the use of smartcards to access details of patient appointments, their passwords, or information on some disabilities. The British Information Commissioner's Office, which polices the Data Protection Act, said it was aware of concerns among GPs over alleged security weaknesses in the systems and its staff were in talks with NHS' Connecting for Health. Meanwhile, the national data spine, a backbone of new national systems, suffered a protracted failure in February 2006 after Connecting for Health said the service had returned to normal following serious faults in December 2005 and early January 2006.

Information about several papers discussed at a conference involving general practitioners in 2007 in Great Britain. Discussion focused on the Choose and Book system for the electronic booking of hospital appointment which is part of the National Programme for information technology in the National Health Services. The Local Medical Committees crticized the program and claimed that its a politically driven effort.

NHS IT The national programme for IT in the NHS has so far been promised £ 2.3bn. The government anticipates success, but clinicians are questioning whether this is enough. IT manager Philip Jones referred to the way officials in the Department of Health expect him to prepare with enthusiasm for his trust to link into new systems that are being developed for the NHS's £2.3bn national programme for IT, without giving him the information he needs. Under the programme, local or national service providers will provide an integrated care records service, including electronic patient records, hospital appointments system, a new national infrastructure and e-prescriptions. INSET: Pattison: it is my belief that once trust see the power of ...

This article reports that the release of the National Audit Office report on the Great Britain NHS' Choose and Book system before the project has ended marks a major departure from past practice. A spokesman for the Department of Health said he welcomed the early involvement of the Audit Office, which last week produced recommendations to help turn the troubled electronic booking system for hospital appointments into a success. One of the findings of the Audit Office report is that the main supplier for the national Choose and Book system, Atos Origin, has delivered successfully and has charged the NHS its full monthly fee of £ 694,000 since last October. In part this is because there have been difficulties linking hospital and general practitioners (GP) systems to Atos Origin's national system. The report found that a third of trusts will not be able to meet the government's target of using fully-integrated electronic systems to allow patients and GPs to book hospital appointments by the end of this year. As the government is insisting that patients are given a choice of hospitals by the end of the year, whether or not fully integrated equipment is in place, many will have to deploy interim systems. INSET: Questions we would have liked to ask the health minister.