Accenture abandons its work on troubled NHS IT project
Elizabeth Judge and Joe Bolger write in The Times:
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the US software group, was left to pick up the pieces yesterday after Accenture walked away from the NHS’s troubled £12.4 billion IT modernisation project.
In the most serious blow yet for the controversial project, which has been beset with delays and glitches, Accenture said that it would bow out, leaving only three key suppliers — BT, Fujitsu and CSC.
David Meyer, writing in ZDNet, notes the connection to the Home Office Identity Cards project:
James Hall, the Accenture executive responsible for its NHS contracts, left the company recently to become head of the Identity and Passport Service, with responsibility for overseeing the proposed introduction of ID cards.
Accenture’s involvement in the NHS project is reported to have lost the company £240 million.
October 1st, 2006 at 12:40
Lets hope James Hall makes as big a balls up with his new job as he did with his old one.But its us poor suckers who will end up paying for it financially,with loss of privacy and with yet more surveillance by a civil service and a government,which basically doesn,t trust its own people.
October 7th, 2006 at 18:20
The cowboys at Accenture are the last people I would want handling the ID card projects.
If their handling of security of patient data is anything to go by our private data will end up in the hands of the criminal fraternity in no time.
Accenture are a complete joke.