/lights touch paper and stands well back Discussion point - find governmental IT projects that have come in on time and budget. The contract for the National programme for IT was writen in such a way as to pay only for results. One of the reasons Accenture had to give way and admit defeat was because they didn't produce results on the core contract, only on the PACS system, which was additional functionality. Richard Granger (the guy in charge of the NPfIT programme at the time) has a lot to answer for, but the contracting process was one of the most stringent I have seen (and arguably one of the most inflexible for suppliers - another discussion point - is this a good thing?). You can only change 3 variables in a project - time, cost or quality. Given that the cost was fixed, the quality and the time were the things that suffered. As for an IT project that came in on cost and time - I am guessing, but maybe putting the DVLA online? I know it won a few prizes for implementation. Discussion point - given the technical knowledge needed to understand databases and security as well as the way the NHS runs, will anyone be fully 'informed' beyond us computer geeks. Also, is the recording of opt out names just paranoid rambling. Point one above - no idea, I am not a techie! Opt out vs. opt in. As I said in the previous thread - I want to be able to view my medical record online. I can already view my bank statement online, do my taxes online, do the majority of my shopping online. The medical record that has my name on is mine, not my GPs, not my local hospitals etc. I want to be able to see it, and do my own research on what it contains, to be an informed customer of the health service. Giving me my paper record is impractical, so please put it online and give me a password. If 'opting in' gives me that, then I will opt in. It seems chirlish that medical people are saying "Don't put it online cos systems are awful in terms of security". What they are actually saying is that they themselves are awful at security. Like many things, this can be changed. How about giving people role based access, having smart cards for log-ins with encrypted passwords, logging every single keystroke that happens on the system... Oh wait - isn't that what's happening with the programme at the moment? D'oh. If banks had been government owned, and someone suggested putting all banking records online, there would be a furore about the size of the one for medical records. But the banks went online, and put security protocols in place, and we accept this as the de facto standard. Let's do it for health records.