Health minister Ben Bradshaw has acknowledged that so far just 24 people are using one of the core systems in the NHS National Programme IT (NPfIT).

Bradshaw said that University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Trust is making "limited clinical usage in a single ward, with 10 system users", of the Lorenzo patient administration system. At South Birmingham Primary Care Trust the system is restricted to the 14 user podiatry team.

In a written parliamentary answer on 16 December 2008, he added that Bradford Teaching Hospitals foundation trust will go live in the new year with Lorenzo.

Lorenzo software is being developed iSoft for use by all trusts in the north, Midlands and east of England, where CSC is the NPfIT local service provider.

In reply to questions from Conservative MP Richard Bacon, Bradshaw confirmed delays in the release schedule for the software. As part of a contract reset in January 2007, the intention was for Lorenzo release 3.5 to appear by 30 June 2008 and release 4.0 by 30 June 2009, but the minister said that Lorenzo release 2.0, containing care management functionality, should now be available for testing in the UK by the end of December.

This article was originally published at Kablenet.

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