I felt a sinking feeling in my stomach when I discovered that Accenture
was managing the new NHS IT systems. Accenture is the new name for what
was Andersen Consulting, a branch of Arthur Anderson that split from the
main corporation just before the Enron scandals engulfed the parent
company in 2002.

The name "Arthur Anderson" has, to those in the know, become synonymous
with cronyism, book-cooking and outright criminality. Isn't it
reassuring to know that our precious NHS is using a former subsidiary of
this filthy firm to manage its new IT system. Well they were until the
failures of the UK company ISoft to provide the required software on
time, resulted in massive losses for Accenture.

Like rats leaving a sinking ship, Accenture then severed its ties with
the NHS contract and left the IT project half implemented and
unsupported. Good riddance to bad rubbish maybe, but what about the
damage this debacle has caused to the NHS information systems?

It seems that Accenture are still involved somewhat with the support of
the NHS IT systems on a piecemeal basis for those unlucky trusts that
have moved over to the new systems. Take a look at this email that was
recently sent out to all staff in the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
NHS Trust:

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***Sent:* 27 November 2006 16:03
***Subject:* Latest update on Clinical documents on CRS
*Importance:* High

Dear colleagues,
As you maybe aware the clinical document functionality on the CRS
continues to periodically fall over. The system supplier is trying to
fix this issue but as of yet no long term resolution has been found.

Accenture are aware of the high risk that the current situation is
putting the Trust under and have allocated all available resource in
attempting to resolve the issue.
I will be receiving a further update from Accenture tomorrow and will
let you know then if the problem has been fixed.

Could you please carry on with the following process until the problem
has been resolved:
# If end users are experiencing problems with all documents then they
should log off iPM and log back in
# Once successfully logged in, this should then allow you to use documents
and templates

In the meantime I apologise for the inconvenience this is causing your
service.
Regards
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This "high risk" situation is apparently a common occurrence in Trusts
using the Accenture IT systems and is preventing staff from accessing
medical records. This situation is clearly putting patient's lives at
risk and causing more stress to NHS staff already close to breaking point.

This situation is another example of how the government is attempting to
destroy the NHS by forcing through privatisation measures. These
measures are not only more expensive but, as we can see from the state
of the new IT systems, less effective than the old public sector
solutions. All these private contracts do is line the pockets of
multinational corporations with UK tax payer's money.

So, when are we going to draw a line in the sand to protect what is left
of our *public* health service?