Tories promise to scrap “top-down, bureaucratic” NHS IT programme

The Conservatives have said they will dismantle the central NHS information technology infrastructure that Labour has been building for the past seven years if they gain power at the next general election. Instead they will promote more localised systems where patients have greater control over their personal health records.

An independent review of IT for the NHS and social services, commissioned for the Conservatives, acknowledges that the NHS national programme for IT, conceived by the government in 2002, has the potential to “bring about significant improvements to the delivery of patient care” and should not be abandoned altogether. But it should be “adapted and recast to better meet the needs of patients,” says the review.

The Conservatives say that …