apologize or else

apologize or else

Why would anyone want to review the NPfIT ?
FAQ
1/ its just a waste of time
2/ its going fine (see the websites)
3/ if it doesn't deliver, we don't pay
4/ any other reasons?

1. having an independant review of a large project doesn't typically increase project times - actually ,its a chance to improve documentation, and to get low cost objective fedback so you can re-factorize and change priorities. Aside from any accountability questions (and if the project fails, and we don't pay, we are left with a god almighty mess AND waste of NHS resources - time of training of medical and admin staff to use a failed system wouyld represent a massive sink of effort - the project must not be allowed to fail unless there's somethign crucially wrong with it, but it must also be bought in reasonably close to budget - this is not impossible, but I don't believe a self-monitoring programme has ever done that.

2. the website and other data on the programme are extensive, but so is the NHS - 14,000 siginficant sized sites with 1M employees - The story of how well its going down to grass roots is not captures through a few case studies and glossy PDFs or even some (laudible) Best Common Practice material. An _evaluation_ of the programme progress, and SWOT analyiss mid point should be public (the last annual report is not deep.

3. If the project misses part of its deliverables, the affect on not only the NGS but the suppliers is going to be fairly bad (think share price, think sunk cost, think committed opex as well as capex) -

The negative response to what is essentially an offer of help is suspicious.
The public will respond with "so what have they got to hide". Thats not helpful.

On the other hand, it might be good if an industrial conortium did an independant review (on the other hand, several of the candidate companies didn't bid for the NPfIT because thye assessed it as infeasible.)