Western Sydney University IT Project Management: NHS System Failure

This report analyzes the failure of the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) system from an IT project management perspective. The project, aimed at centralizing health data across the UK, failed due to factors such as political influence, a top-down approach neglecting user input, hasty procurement processes, and frequent requirement changes. The report highlights the importance of stakeholder involvement, careful planning, and risk management in large-scale IT projects, concluding that the NHS system's failure resulted from a combination of unrealistic goals, unregulated technical changes, and inadequate attention to fundamental project management principles. The project's cost overruns and eventual dismissal underscore the need for effective leadership and predictive skills in IT project management.

Running head: IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
IT Project Management
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Abstract
IT projects have contributed to a huge amount of the global revenue in the recent years.
However, not all of these projects have been successfully delivered to the clients. A failed
project not only damages the reputation of the involved organization, a huge amount of revenue
is wasted in these projects. There are some IT projects that were on a larger scale and was meant
to serve in the interest of the general public. Thus, these projects were in the top of the list of IT
project failures.

2IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Main body........................................................................................................................................3
Findings...........................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Reference List..................................................................................................................................6

3IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Introduction
There are various IT projects that have failed in the past, nevertheless the project that
would be discussed in this report would be the U.K. National Health Service system. This system
would be discussed in this report and the reasons for its failure. This particular IT project failure
is being considered for study as it may be on the top of the list for IT project failures with the
most loss of revenue till date and this money belonged to the UK taxpayer’s money (Connolly,
2018). The purpose of this report is to analyze the Chaos report of the aforesaid IT project
failure.
Main body
The U.K. National Health Service system was aimed at connecting the health data of all
the citizens across UK into one system (Guest et al., 2015). This was a top-down project as the
project was initiated for political reasons (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). This was indeed a project
that was highly influenced by the political parties and therefore by probability such a project is
bound to fail. The abandoned project was estimated to have costed around ten billion pounds of
the tax payers money. This project was therefore at the pinnacle of IT project failure as it
involved such high losses. The aim of implementing such a system definitely deserved high
praise. However, the plan was more theoretical in nature and practical consideration and ideas
were not implemented before rolling out the plan for developing such a massive system
(Meredith et al., 2016). A successful ICT project must involve the views and opinions of its key
stakeholders especially the people who are going to use the system. The future users of the
healthcare system had raised their concerns about the accessibility criteria of the system and the
reasons that would not prove beneficial for the system. However, the political parties and the
project planners did not take those opinions into consideration and instead went ahead with their

4IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
planning as usual. The procurement process was very hasty and that time it was termed as
efficient. Future contracts awarding procedures were supposed to be awarded using the same
procurement technique as a reference model. However, such a fast and efficient technique was
not appropriate for the procurement purposes. The contract terms that seemed viable were
accepted up front without any investigation into the matter as to the requirement of the terms.
Lack of negotiation has hasted the procurement process nevertheless at the cost of bad
procurement strategies. This resulted in extremely poor contract generating process. The service
providers did not get paid until they delivered the items. This had in turn created a lot of disarray
among the vendors. The project demanded a lot of last minute changes to procurement and even
addition to existing purchase orders. Large scale service providers can absorb such risks and
mitigate them by making a good margin in the process. However, the small service providers
could not always handle the enormous risks that entailed the project and would therefore in a
matter of time would just get removed from the process eventually. Different regional service
providers were thus appointed for the same reason. Contracts got terminated in the course of the
project and the remaining service providers had to compensate for the empty slot. Finally, it was
about the accountability decision of the project director that led to the dismissal of the system
that showed the excellent predicative skills that an ICT manager must possess to determine the
success and failure of a project even before it is completed (Saadé, Dong & Wan, 2015).
Findings
The findings suggest that the project failed primarily because it was a large-scale project.
Every project consists of some particular steps that must be completed to ensure its success. This
project was no exception. The opinions of the users were not taken into consideration as a top-
down approach was used. Therefore, the system was not approached with usability and

5IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
accessibility of the system. The procurement method was hasty and it instead had adverse effect
on the whole in the long term as the terms of procurement were harshly implemented. The rapid
changes to the project requirement also contributed to cost overrun and therefore project failure.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that the U.K. National Health Service system was a failure
due to not one but several reasons. The huge size of the project with lack of realistic approach to
it were the primary reasons behind the failure. The project faced cost overrun due to unregulated
technical changes and that in turn resulted in the dismissal of the project. The fundamental
structure of every ICT project remains the same and must be handled accordingly.

6IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Reference List
Connolly, B. (2018). Top 10 enterprise IT disasters. www.cio.com.au. Retrieved 30 March 2018,
from https://www.cio.com.au/article/542245/top_10_enterprise_it_disasters/?pp=2
Guest, J. F., Ayoub, N., McIlwraith, T., Uchegbu, I., Gerrish, A., Weidlich, D., ... & Vowden, P.
(2015). Health economic burden that wounds impose on the National Health Service in
the UK. BMJ open, 5(12), e009283.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.
Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Mantel Jr, S. J., & Sutton, M. M. (2016). Project management in
practice. Wiley Global Education.
Saadé, R. G., Dong, H., & Wan, H. (2015). Factors of project manager success. Interdisciplinary
Journal of Information, Knowledge, and Management, 10, 63-80.
Syal, R. (2018). Abandoned NHS IT system has cost £10bn so far. www.theguardian.com.
Retrieved 30 March 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-
records-system-10bn.