Published: 28/02/2002, Volume II2, No. 5794 Page 9

Scotland's new IT strategy can only work if managers and clinicians throw their weight behind organisational development and workforce training, a leading NHS information expert has warned.

Mike Lister, acting national programme director for electronic clinical communications implementation, said making best use of IT had a 'human and people' element as well as being about the technology itself.

He spoke to HSJ just before the strategy, which promises electronic records across Scotland by 2003, was launched on Monday by Scottish health minister Malcolm Chisholm.

Mr Lister said it was not just about the IT capability. 'It is a change-management issue.

Training and organisational development expertise are very important, and I am confident that this is being taken very seriously. A lot of resource is being put into this and the sites [where the projects are being piloted] are being asked to demonstrate that this is happening.'

Various aspects of electronic records, including electronic outpatient appointment booking and electronic transfer of laboratory results, are already being piloted in sites across Scotland.

'ECCI will be a very long journey and we are just beginning to take the initial steps. But it should lead to improvements in the patient journey and make the NHS more joined up.'

Mr Lister, who is also head of IT at Highland Acute trust, said he understood that some managers were wary about promises regarding technology. He said: 'For some, it might seem that the NHS has been littered with failed IT projects. But lessons are learned from each one. I believe that by involving clinicians and others who actually use IT in the health service, we are starting to get it right.'

Mr Chisholm also announced£2m of new funding for next year, on top of an existing three-year£50m investment programme.

The new money is intended to ensure that more staff have access to IT and step up implementation of initiatives including electronic records, which already gets£11m of Scottish Executive funding.

Mr Chisholm said the money would address the issue of different systems which could not 'talk to each other' being used across the service, which he called a 'hangover from the internal market'.