NHS IT chief checks out
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Granger to spend time with the family from October....
Richard Granger, the man in charge of the controversial NHS IT refresh, has quit his post. Granger, the highest paid civil servant in the UK, will leave the position in October.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Granger said that he wanted to spend more time with his family, and that the job he has held since 2002 was “quite simply relentless.”
But he offered no apology for what some have seen as the gross mismanagement of the largest non-military IT project in history. “I am proud of what has been achieved by the team I established,” he said.
During Granger’s tenure, the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) has been dogged by negative press. In September 2006, consultancy Accenture pulled out of its contracts to supply technology for the programme, blaming late delivery of software by health application developer iSoft.
In April 2007, IT services provider Atos Origin had its contract to supply to the NHS suspended after it emerged that the records of patients’ ultrasound and MRI scans were riddled with errors.
Control over individual projects, however, will be passed down from central to local authorities in August 2007, under the National Local Ownership Programme (NLOP).
Further reading
NHS begins search for alternate vendors - March 2007
Accenture quits NHS IT programme - September 2006
