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Patients miss critical visits after data loss

Suspected cancer patients at top London hospitals have missed critical appointments after their records were lost by a new multi-billion-pound computer system.

  • Evening Standard
  • Published: 00:15 June 29, 2008
  • Gulf News

London: Suspected cancer patients at top London hospitals have missed critical appointments after their records were lost by a new multi-billion-pound computer system.

Patients missed appointments with a specialist within the necessary two weeks because of problems with the new Care Records Service installed under the NHS £12.7 billion (Dh93.1 billion) National Programme for IT (NPfIT).

Problems arose in April when Bart's and The London Trust switched to the new system, which failed to keep track of patient data. As well as missing urgent appointments, patients were booked into closed clinics and appointments were repeatedly cancelled, a report in Computer Weekly revealed today.

The latest crisis comes after the trust admitted covering up figures that showed it had failed to get more than 500 patients waiting for hip replacements and varicose vein operations into theatre within the 26-week National Health Service target. The Care Records Service, the world's largest non-military IT programme, was launched in 2002 to keep a record of 50 million patients across Britain.

The Government had promised that everyone suspected of suffering from cancer would see a specialist within two weeks of their GP referral.

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