£40m is wasted on GP data extraction IT system that does not work properly

The £40m (€56m; $62m) General Practice Extraction Service (GPES), the IT system designed to allow NHS organisations to extract data from general practice computer systems in England for monitoring and research purposes, cannot provide the services intended, an investigation by the National Audit Office (NAO) has shown.1

The GPES was meant to extract data from general practice computer systems in England to allow NHS organisations to monitor quality, to plan and pay for health services, and to aid research. It was also intended to play a key role in the care.data initiative to enable the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) to extract patient information from GPs’ computer systems and align it with Hospital Episode Statistics data extracted through the Secondary Uses Service system, to provide a comprehensive NHS dataset.

However, four years after GPES was scheduled to start, just one customer, NHS England, has received data through …