NHS bosses spent more than £20 million trying to convince GP surgeries to adopt new IT software despite just a handful of practices agreeing to update their systems, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The Tech Innovation Framework, launched in 2022, promised to ‘increase innovation and choice’ for GPs by allowing smaller companies to offer patient record-keeping systems, breaking the dominance of a handful of large firms.
But rather than drive down prices, the scheme has now been condemned as a ‘waste of money’ after it emerged that a tiny number of practices took up the offer of new systems despite the health service spending millions pushing GPs to consider the options.
Details of the project, revealed after a Freedom of Information request, showed that NHS England spent over half of the scheme’s costs, £13.2 million, funding salaries for its own staff and contractors during its three-year lifespan.
Millions of pounds were also spent on so-called ‘discovery’ payments – £20,000 bungs offered to GP practices to simply be given information about the systems – with £1.5 million of these payments handed to 79 surgeries as part of a trial for IT firm Medicus.
But despite the cash splurge only four of these practices ended up installing its patient data system, a success rate of just 5 per cent.
‘Waste’: Medicus received £1.4 million for IT adopted in four practices
Another £686,000 was spent on ‘pre-deployment’ at eight surgeries and just £490,000 on installation. Medicus received £1.4 million from the scheme, as one of four IT firms paid a total of £5.5 million.
‘I would call this a waste of money,’ said Dennis Reed, of older people’s campaign group Silver Voices. He added: ‘I wonder whether there has been appropriate vetting and scrutiny of these companies. We are talking about confidential patient records.’
Tory MP Joe Robertson, a member of the Health and Social Care Select Committee, was also concerned about how few surgeries appeared to have benefited from the scheme, saying: ‘The scale of spending involved will raise serious questions. When significant public funds are committed yet only a handful of sites appear to be live, taxpayers are entitled to expect a clear explanation of what has been delivered and what patients have gained in return.
‘We have to ask whether introducing additional IT systems into general practice is the right priority at this time. Many GPs are not crying out for more suppliers, they are frustrated that existing systems still struggle to speak to one another across the NHS.
‘This is not just about cost. Patient medical records are among the most sensitive data held anywhere in public life. When a new provider enters that space through a taxpayer-funded programme, the bar must be exceptionally high, on data security, governance and value for money.’
Medicus was set up in 2019 by a former City trader and boasts of being the ‘first new GP system in 25 years’ and using ‘the latest cloud-based system’.
Emile Axelrad, 40, worked as an energy trader for Australia’s Macquarie Bank before founding Arbor Education, a company providing IT services for education.
He set up Medicus in 2019 with his former colleague Tim Gray, 35. Its most recent accounts show Medicus had 14 employees in 2024 and was worth £2.7 million.
Axelrad stressed the firm’s commitment to ‘interoperability’ with other NHS systems and said his system had passed ‘rigorous assurance and audit processes’.
He added: ‘We take patient confidentiality and information governance extremely seriously.
‘Medicus operates within the same regulatory and contractual framework as other NHS GP IT system suppliers.’
The Department of Health and Social Care was approached for comment.
DIY INVESTING PLATFORMS
Affiliate links: If you take out a product This is Money may earn a commission. These deals are chosen by our editorial team, as we think they are worth highlighting. This does not affect our editorial independence.