The importance of getting things right.
Isoft seem to be having trouble all over the place as hot on the heels of their difficulties with the Nuffield hospital in Oxford comes news of ongoing problems with the implementation of clinical records systems in Surrey.
Epsom & St Helier NHS Trust has been struggling with the implementation of Isoft Patient Manager & Clinical Manager packages for the past year but the situation has been out of control in the last 4 months following an update to support Choose & Book with various departments including Accident & Emergency having to fall back entirely to using paper records for months on end. Patients details are not available on the system, investigations can’t be ordered leading to extended inpatient stays & delays, results go missing & appointments cannot be booked normally leading to duplication & delays. And this is for software that has been sold & supported since 2002! What is going to happen when the new functionality promised by Connecting for Health is ready?
Given that these departments had been using older software for years, just how much trouble Isoft is having can be imagined.
This does not appear to be an isolated instance with quite a few hospitals suffering the same consequences and the Department of Health fully aware of & putting pressure on Isoft to improve performance. I wonder though if the contracts negotiated with the LSP’s in secret by the DOH include clauses for damages to be paid by the contactors if the performance of the system is worse than when they started.