Support For National Programme For IT

A new report published today shows the National Programme for IT, which is being delivered by NHS Connecting for Health, continues to receive high levels of support among all NHS staff, despite them recognising the challenges involved in delivering it.

The findings of the second survey by the Ipsos Social Research Institute build on the conclusions of the first survey, published in September 2005.

The survey is designed to explore levels of awareness, understanding of, and support for, the National Programme for IT within the NHS. It considers the views of a range of staff: managers and administrators as well as clinicians. The survey is repeated regularly in order to track the progress we are making in communicating and engaging with the NHS about this important change programme.

The first wave of research was published in September 2005 and indicated broad support for the National Programme for IT. We are now pleased to attach a summary of the findings of the second wave study, which shows that this support has been broadly maintained.

The general findings of the survey are as follows:

• Most staff groups remain as positive about the National Programme as in 2005
• The National Programme continues to receive high levels of support among frontline as well as managerial staff
• More staff are favourable to the National Programme than unfavourable
• A large majority of all staff groups believe the National Programme will bring benefits to patient care. Similar levels of support can be observed in terms of the programme improving staff's daily working life and making planning of services easier. This indicates that many staff share the vision the programme is aiming to achieve
• The majority of staff think the services provided through the National Programme will help them in their daily working life, that they will make the planning of services easier and that they will improve clinical care in the NHS
• Across staff groups, an overwhelming majority believe the NHS should make use of modern communication technologies
• An overwhelming majority say implementing the National Programme is important.

NHS Connecting for Health will use the results of the research to help direct ongoing engagement activities and communications. The full survey can be downloaded from the NHS Connecting for Health website at: www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk

Download the full report pdf, 1MB

Technical details

The Ipsos survey was carried out by telephone, between 23 January and 23 February 2006. Interviews were carried out with six types of NHS staff. In total, 1,197 interviews were carried out: 213 with Doctors, 207 with Nurses, 208 with AHPs, 200 with NHS Managers, 158 with IM&T Managers and 211 with Administration staff (Practice Managers and Hospital Administrators).

Quotas were set during fieldwork to ensure sufficient numbers of interviews were carried out with particular groups of staff. Data were weighted to reflect the known profile of each NHS staff group. In some cases, the full profile of some staff groups is currently not available and therefore the data are not fully representative in some regards.

The first wave of research was conducted between 22 June and 25 July 2005. In total, 1,223 interviews were carried out: 206 with Doctors, 229 with Nurses, 205 with Allied Health Professionals, 202 with NHS Managers, 179 with IM&T Managers and 202 with Administration staff.