Earlier this month contractors arrived at a large hospital in south
London to replace its main computers with newer models capable of running
more up-to-date software. The old computers had been installed barely a
year before. Most industries would have seen the need to replace computers
after such a short time as admission of failure. In Britain’s National Health
Service, the process towards computerisation has been so slow, tortuous
and riddled with dead ends that the replacement of yet another set of unsuitable
hardware passed almost without comment.
Computers are one element of government spending in health that almost
everybody agrees will benefit from the Conserva-tive Party’s victory in
the general election. Information technology is essential to the reforms
that the government is making to the world’s largest public health service.
But the programme has a long way to go.
The NHS, founded in 1948 to run health care in Britain, employs about
1.25 million people, including part-timers, and spends about £30
billion a year. By international standards, the NHS is efficient: it offers
free health care to the population at a cost of 5.8 per cent of GDP. The
average among developed countries is 7.6 per cent. However, the system is
straining under the steady increase in the number of patients (largely
due to the growing number of older people) and relentless increases in
the cost of medical treatment as new techniques, drugs and equipment become
available.
Business discipline
The Conservative government says it is tackling the crisis by making
the health service operate more like a private organisation (although during
the election campaign, it repeatedly denied any…
