General Practice extraction service inquiry

The General Practice Extraction Service (GPES) is an IT system designed to allow NHS organisations (the planned users of the service were: Public Health England, NHS England, the Clinical Commissioning Groups, UK Biobank, the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the Care Quality Commission) to extract data from all GP practice computer systems in England. The data extracted would be used to monitor quality, plan and pay for health services and help medical research. In March 2013 the NHS Information Centre (NHS IC) accepted the system from Atos. The system transferred to the new Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) from 1 April 2013; the HSCIC found that the system had fundamental designs flaws and did not work. The Department of Health (the Department) failed to ensure that an effective governance structure was in place for the project and that basic lessons from past government IT failures were learned. Very common mistakes from past projects were repeated, such as failing to adopt the right contracting approach, failing to ensure continuity of key staff on the project, and failing to undertake proper testing before accepting the system. GPES started some five years later than planned; it is over-budget; and it still does not provide the full service required. Atos, supplier for a key part of the system, may have met the letter of its contractual obligations but took advantage of a weak client by taking the client’s money while knowing full well that the whole system had not been properly tested.