NHS claws back £170m refund on duff IT system
'Lorenzo' snake oil found to be worthless
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An American IT company has returned £170 million to the NHS after a project they promised to deliver was declared impossible.
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) coughed up the refund last week after finally admitting that it could never deliver the Lorenzo computer system it was contracted to create for the NHS.
The NHS made the £200 million payment to CSC on, aptly, 1 April this year. The money was intended to cover the projected costs of the Lorenzo project in 2012, but after the NHS declared themselves unsatisfied with the progress of the work on 30 September, they killed the project and requested the taxpayers' dosh back.
Some parts of the NHS's National Programme for IT (NPfIT) commissioned in 2002 have been salvaged but the bulk of the project has been ditched. The Lorenzo project was one of the programme's big disappointments. It was supposed provide a unified system for sharing patient care records and was slated to be delivered in 2004. It was delayed till 2008, but it has taken until this year for the project to be finally killed off, with a report from the Major Projects Authority putting the final nails in the coffin.
It's not just the Department of Health that is complaining: CSC's American shareholders have entered into litigation against the company for failing to acknowledge the problems earlier. Their action claims that CSC made "fraudulent statements about performance" and had misrepresented the state of the contract to Wall Street and to investors since 2008.
CSC continues to turn out other projects for the NHS including IT systems for community and child health trusts, ambulance trusts and GPs in the North, Midlands and East regions. ®
COMMENTS
"CSC continues to turn out other projects for the NHS..."
Which is the problem at the root of the woes of government IT.
The way it works in the real world is: "You screw us, we shitlist you.".
IIRC, this did once happen when the previous Tory administration actually *did* shitlist one of the big consultancies, causing much smacking of gobs and gasting of flabbers at the time. Again IIRC, the firm in question promptly opened its "political donations" wallet to Bliar's mob and got their noses back into the trough come the next election. Nothing like a nice, fat bribe to focus the minds of politicians.....
Nice to see
Some slightly good news in amongst the recent spending disasters; here's hoping the NHS get to put the dosh to something useful and necessary that is delivered on time and does the job for a change.
A man can dream.
@RNtT(KKWWMT)
"So this company has in effect made £30 million for doing the square root of sod all? Where can I get that kind of work?!?"
Simply become the CEO of HP!
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