Computer failure puts cancer sufferers at risk

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Patients missed appointments with a specialist within the necessary two weeks because of problems with the new Care Records Service installed under the NHS £12.7 billion

Programme for IT (NPfIT). Problems arose in April when Bart's and The London Trust switched to the new system, which failed to keep track of patient data. As well as missing urgent appointments, patients were booked into closed clinics and appointments were repeatedly cancelled, a report in Computer Weekly revealed today.

The latest crisis comes after the trust admitted covering up figures that showed it had failed to get more than 500 patients waiting for hip replacements and varicose vein operations into theatre within the 26-week NHS target.

The Care Records Service - the world's largest non-military IT programme - was launched in 2002 to keep an electronic record for 50 million patients across Britain.

Directors at Bart's were told of the problems at a board meeting this week. The Government had promised that everyone suspected of suffering from cancer would see a specialist within two weeks of their GP referral. Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee which last week held hearings on the latest National Audit Office report on the NPfIT, said it was "hard to imagine a more serious failure".