Boss slams new NHS computer system

A nurse chats with parents on the Parrot ''neurosurgery'' Ward at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and NHS Trust in central London July 4, 2008.

LONDON (Reuters) - An NHS hospital boss criticised the new computerised medical records system on Friday, saying it has cost an extra 10 million pounds to implement and is slowing the rate at which patients are seen.

Andrew Gray, chief executive of London's Royal Free Hospital -- which is being seen as a test case for the system -- said the technology, part of a broader 12.7 billion pound IT upgrade at hospitals nationwide, is "incredibly disappointing."

The software was taking staff four times as long to book appointments for patients and soaking up money the trust would have otherwise invested in new X-ray machines.

"I think it is very disappointing that the work we had to do as a trust has caused our staff so much heartache and hard work," he told BBC radio.

Explaining the added costs he said: "About 4 million of it is additional expenditure over and above the project plan that we already have in place and 6 million is related to (patient) income losses."

Gray said the hospital had to take on 40 extra staff to handle the added workload and that initially the software kept on crashing.

The Department of Health said lessons would be learned from the Royal Free's experience.

The National Programme for IT aims to create a centralised medical records system for 50 million patients in England.

Last month MPs said the new system which is already four years late, and has been dogged by controversy, faces yet more delays.

Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, which represents over 90 percent of NHS organisations in the UK, also criticised the roll-out.

"This isn't the first hospital to have very significant problems with implementation and in particular this issue that it doesn't quite fit local systems..," he told the BBC.

"Hospitals need to be able to tailor what they've got to their needs rather than being given this one-size-fits-all solution."

(Reporting by Stefano Ambrogi; editing by Steve Addison)