| Does it make sense to carry on with local IT developments when it is not clear how they will fit with the national programme? |
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| The messages from Richard Granger are unequivocal: local procurements are local decisions, and local investment must be sustained.
"I’ve never said that people on the ground should stop buying things they need now and can afford" |
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| Asked about whether local trusts were wise to follow a wait-and-see approach, Mr Granger continued to express concern about the level of local investment. Refuting the idea that he now controls all NHS IT funds, Mr Granger stated: |
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| "This year we have £370 million of new money centrally, in addition to the £850 million of local baseline spend. People need to sustain that local spend" |
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| The clear message, then, is that local investment must be sustained because the National Programme for IT is additional to baseline spend. Without sustained local investment many trusts and PCTs will simply not be in a position to harness the systems to be delivered by the National Programme. |
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| "A large number of people have not spotted the fact that this programme is a joint national and local responsibility" pointed out Professor Hutton. |
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| Mr Granger spelt out the consequences of failure to sustain baseline IT spending: |
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| "As we get into reviewing local funding streams and express them on a per capita basis, if there is a scenario in which someone locally has chosen to divert their base IT spend, they are firstly going to get found out, and secondly, they are going to have a problem. We’re going to be sitting there with high-utility solutions, but if they have failed to retain their underlying spend there will not be a local platform for implementation" |
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| Mr Granger relayed the following guidance: |
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| "The things we are looking to do are new and are additive. We are not looking to transfer existing IT capacity out of the NHS"
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