The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) aims to create a centralised medical records system for 50 million patients in England at a cost of more than £12bn, but a hospital boss has criticised the system today, saying it had cost his trust an extra £10m and meant fewer patients could be seen.

In statement published on guardian.co.uk, Andrew Way, chief executive of Hampstead’s Royal Free hospital, in north-west London, said his staff were “incredibly disappointed” with the IT upgrade on trial at the hospital. Mr. Way went on to talk about the problems of getting the new Care Record System (CRS) working, revealing that the hospital was forced to spend an additional £4m on getting the system working and had lost a further £6m because of fewer patients and problems with the system that meant the hospital was unable to bill other parts of the NHS for work done.

There’s no doubt that an integrated view of patient records should lead to improved; I’ve seen the evidence of what can happen when clinicians don’t have complete or accurate information about their patients.  It can lead to patients receiving the wrong treatment with sometimes deadly consequences.

But the NHS is also a massive business, or more accurately a collection of businesses that trade with each other. If data is incorrect, a patient could be allocated the wrong treatment code. This not only determines patient care, but also the associated cost to the commissioner and can affect the budget for the Primary Care Trust and GP Practices. As an extreme example, a mistake in the dates of a patient’s hospital stay could lead to an in-patient spell of 2 years rather than 2 weeks and can cost a hundred thousand pounds rather than a thousand pounds but other errors are often a lot smaller and a lot more difficult to identify.

NPfIT is a national programme being driven by the UK government, but it needs to deliver positive results from all the stakeholders; Patients, Clinicians, PCTs, Hospitals and the tax payer. Last month the Commons Public Accounts Committee warned of further delays to the scheme and described progress as “very disappointing”.

Fit for purpose data is essential for cinical purpose and strategic decision making. Read how Durham Primary Care Trust is ensuring that it has complete and accurate data by using dn:Director.