HOSPITALS across the region are refusing to implement a £12.7bn scheme to create electronic care records because of the risk to patient safety, a report by MPs reveals today.

No hospital in the North- East or North Yorkshire had introduced the computer system by the end of last month – despite a deadline to “go live” in the autumn.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has said hospital managers are shunning the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), because they fear chaos and a risk to patients if they are later forced to revert to paper records. The report is the latest crushing blow to the scheme – the largest nonmilitary IT project in history – which was already four years behind schedule before the latest delays. Edward Leigh, the PAC’s Conservative chairman, said the time had come for the department of health (DoH) to set a strict six-month deadline for improvement – then allow NHS trusts to explore “alternative systems”.

He said: “The risks to the successful delivery are as serious as ever. Trusts should not be expected to deploy care records systems that aren’t working properly.”

The NPfIT is meant to improve patient care by dragging paper-based clinical records for 50 million patients – such as their current drugs, allergies and long-term conditions – into the 21st Century.

The centralised database would allow 120,000 doctors, 400,000 nurses and 130,000 scientists and therapists to electronically access the records at all NHS sites across England, which could save time and lives in an emergency.

The entire North was meant to pioneer the system from the autumn, but the software – called Lorenzo – had not been introduced in any hospital by the end of last year.

The report concludes: “Trusts will not go ahead with a deployment until they are satisfied the system will not put patient safety or the running of the hospital at risk.”

It notes that NHS trusts in the North, including County Durham and Darlington and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys mental health trust, have been fitted with an “interim”

IT system. It also warns of the challenge ahead to convince staff that Lorenzo will deliver further benefits.

Furthermore, the DoH has no power to order semi-independent “foundation” trusts – such as County Durham and Darlington, North Tees and Hartlepool and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys – to ever fit the software.