§ Chris GraylingTo ask the Secretary of State for Health which pilots for NHS electronic bookings have been completed; and what the outcomes of the work carried out were. [110174]
§ Mr. HuttonThere are 43 health communities taking forward electronic booking as part of the national booking programme; at least one in every strategic health authority. These comprise
Five electronic booking enterprise communities: North West London, South East London, Dorset, Manchester and West Yorkshire. These were established to move electronic booking faster and act as demonstrators for the rest of the national health service. They ran from April 2002 to March 2003;38 electronic booking shadow communities between May and November 2002. These were established to continue the development and spread of electronic booking, learning from the experience of the enterprise communities and will run until November 2003.Work with the enterprise communities was used to inform the development of the specification for the procurement of electronic booking systems currently underway.
316WAn interim report on the work of the enterprise communities was published by the Modernisation Agency in November 2002, a copy of which is available in the Library. A full evaluation, reporting the progress of the enterprise communities and early findings from the shadow communities, will be published in the summer.