NHS IT boss gets dressing down

The NHS Choose and Book system is already a year late

Richard Granger, the director of the National Programme for IT, has received a dressing down from his civil servant boss, the Financial Times reported today.

In what is an extraordinary public row, the FT was told by a spokesperson at the Department of Health that Granger is now "calming down" after being reprimanded for exposing serious tensions in the management of the Choose and Book system.

It appears that Granger was spoken to by John Bacon, the senior civil servant responsible for the programme. Granger was allegedly reprimanded for criticising colleagues in public and breaching corporate discipline.

The row appears to stem from a leaked email exchange between Granger and a Whitehall official, in which Granger warned that the problems with Choose and Book could derail the entire £6.2bn Connecting for Health project.

In interviews last week he also criticised Margaret Edwards, director of access, and other "policy people" at the department for repeatedly changing the specification and failing to get hospitals to carry out the work needed to get the system up and running.

On 1 November Sir Nigel Crisp, chief executive of the National Health Service, stated that the Choose and Book system would be a year late.

The system, which was designed to allow patients to choose between four of five hospitals for treatment, was scheduled for full implementation by next month.

So far only 20,000 online bookings have been made, compared with the 9.9 million first outpatient appointments booked annually.