It never fails to amaze me that Government consistently gets IT infrastructure projects wrong yet commissions the next one in exactly the same manner. The NHS is made up of a bunch of autonomous agencies all operating under a single banner. To mandate that these agencies should all use the same IT system goes against every other procurement they deal with. A better idea would be to define the data that needs to be stored, authentication and access criteria and messaging protocols. Then let the market provide solutions that meet these specifications. This would generate competition which, in turn, would provide cheaper and better solutions.