back to article NHS axes HealthSpace: 'Just too difficult' to use

The Department of Health has confirmed that HealthSpace, NHS patients' personal health records organiser, will close by March 2013. It follows a speech this week by Dr Charles Gutteridge, national clinical director for informatics at the Department of Health, at the Westminister Health Forum in London. Gutteridge said in the …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.
  1. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Another huge

    waste of taxpayers money and time....

    1. LarsG

      Re: Another huge

      How much was really wasted? Oh enough to built three new hospitals?

  2. Semaj
    Thumb Down

    Most people don't care about such detail.

    Those that do will just ask their doctor.

    I really can't believe that no one pointed this out before they wasted so much money ...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Unhappy

      You forget how gov works.

      Government comes up with idea in thought shower.

      Doubters are called ludites and naysayers.

      Assigned to mega corp to implement half-arsed idea at huge cost.

      Next Government comes along and scraps idea.

      Government comes up with idea in thought shower.

      Doubters are called ludites and naysayers.

      Assigned to mega corp to implement half-arsed idea at huge cost.

      Next Government comes along and scraps idea........................

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: You forget how [any big organisation] works.

        That description sounds like where I work. It's private sector, it thinks it's world class, but the emperors mostly have no clothes and the effects percolate down.

        Anyone who ventures to speak this thought, let alone provide objective evidence of its truth, is doomed to failure at various levels, and either leaves or learns to shut up.

  3. adam payne

    How much money has been wasted on this? tens of millions?

    1. johnnytruant

      Going on past government IT project costs, I think if it were just 'tens' of millions then we've got off very lightly indeed.

  4. The BigYin

    Not really surprised

    We are talking about an organisation who's standard browser is IE6 FFS.

    Not that I particularly like the idea of deeply personal information being on a public network.

    Maybe a system for checking appointments or something (yes, I know that has privacy issues) but not much more than that really.

  5. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    And in other news

    The NHS is going to have everyone's records online by 2015, through the magic of the private sector and competing innovators or something.

    Yeah, sure.

    1. Alfred 2
      Happy

      Re: And in other news

      "The NHS is going to have everyone's records online by 2015, through the magic of the private sector and competing innovators or something.

      Yeah, sure."

      Aaaah - Facebook ...

      Just check your privacy settings

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It is God Awful to be fair.

    Here's a challenge to all the techies, security and usability guys here:

    - Go to https://www.healthspace.nhs.uk

    - View your Summary Care Record.

    Then let us know here how far you get!

    1. Kubla Cant

      Re: It is God Awful to be fair.

      At least they don't appear to have spent much public money on networks or servers. The home page takes about 6 sec to load, so I'd guess it's running on an IBM PC-XT connected via a 1200 baud dial-up.

      1. Kubla Cant
        Coffee/keyboard

        Re: It is God Awful to be fair.

        60 secs

        Where can I get one of these new keyboards everyone keeps asking for?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Another triumph for the private sector

    The NHS is a cash-cow for private sector consultants who turn up, do shit work, and then bill for it in the expectation that no one will stop them because their boss has lunch with the PM every now and then.

    Why people insist on thinking that privatizing everything will suddenly make the exact same cowboys into responsible honourable businessmen and women is beyond me.

    1. Starkadder
      FAIL

      Re: Another triumph for the private sector

      Because HealthSpace never had a real user, it was just an NHS wet dream. When profit oriented businesses buy IT they ask what it is for, who is going to use it, and how it will save money and/or improve their business operation. HealthSpace would never have passed first base in any private business.

      I registered and tried to use it. It is worse than Gutteridge said. It is not "too difficult to use," it is useless.

  8. Simon B
    WTF?

    Have a look at how many PCT's you can do it with, only about bloody 8! no fecking wonder it's not taken off.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "I think there are good use cases beginning to appear for the use of summary care records"

    So, the project was started with no good use cases? Or, the use cases which are appearing now are different to those originally envisaged? (Which means your data is being used in ways you didn't expect or agree to)

  10. John A Blackley

    Do they know

    Does the NHS know that there are already electronic medical record applications in use over much of the rest of the world?

    Given the amount of money wasted on aborted attempts to reinvent these applications perhaps someone should tell them.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Do they know

      Applications aren't the problem. Scanning 100,000 tonnes of paper is.

  11. Dr Gerard Bulger

    HealthSpace

    I was a member of Connecting For Health Committees and I cannot tell you the flak I got at meetings saying this was such a waste of time. The problem was how patients were to be identified on line. It was difficult to get permission to log on as a user. My protestation that others will do it better and cheaper fell on deaf ears.

    The whole Connecting for Health project was a misconception from day one, as if the NHS was a single bank with only money, not complex data to transact.

    CfH destroyed competition between suppliers. The Government in effect nationalised by stealth clinical systems by rules and regulations and specifications and abuse of monoploy. CfH, the Government, was designing software. The abuse of its monopoly purchasing power as by wayof creating just one customer, HMG, the NHS, as against 30,000 GPs and then hospitals and trusts. This is the new way to nationalise and get state control of industry. Does not need legislation, and was the new Labour way to achieve its ends. This was so destructive to innovation on clinical informatics, which was been stuck in aspic by the Government designed specification and zealous contractual obligations and lack of a free market.

    What they should have done is recommend standards of communication on NHS Net (Intranet), and have a secure search engine search for data on whatever clinical system being used rather than attempting to create the single records. If anyone searched for data (only those with NHS net Access) then patient would be notified by whom and when if not their GP or consultant.

    They thought it so clever, HealthSpace, so trendy, Remember MySpace

  12. Jim Birch
    Meh

    Governments waste large amounts of money trying ideas that don't work and private companies don't?

    Sorry, wrong. Fashion and group-think exist everywhere. Being anti-government might be the basis of a philosophy but the idea that it will result in a world free from bad decisions and useless activity is a complete empirical failure. Successful enterprises of all kinds recognise that not everything will work and failures are more that just a fact of life but also an opportunity. The idea that this would not apply to government is a more than a little strange.

    Who seriously wants a government that takes zero risks?

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like