The Commons' public administration committee has lambasted the government's record on delivering major IT projects. As others have done before, it argues that projects are too big, too long, and too divorced from policy; and that they pit ill informed civil servants against an "oligopoly" of large IT suppliers to disastrous effect.

In this light, it is perhaps unfortunate that the NHS is planning to do without an IT directorate at either the Department of Health or the new NHS Commissioning Board; although the board will have a second tier national director looking after patient engagement, insight and informatics.

Meanwhile, the Common's public accounts committee has announced that it will publish its report on the National Audit Office's report on the National Programme for IT in the NHS over the summer. The report could affect CSC's chances of getting a new deal for the North, Midlands and East of England, where it has missed a series of deadlines to deliver Lorenzo to trusts.

Yet it also emerged this week that the most high profile of those Lorenzo deployments, at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, may be coming good. An update to the board last week simply said "it works!" and much more functionality is planned.

Morecambe Bay says Lorenzo works

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust appears to have turned the corner with its troubled implementation of Lorenzo as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

MPs blast government IT failures

The Commons' public administration committee has concluded that the government's lack of IT skills and over-reliance on an "oligopoly" of large contractors is a "recipe for rip-offs."

PAC to publish NPfIT report over summer

The Commons' public accounts committee is expected to publish its report on the National Audit Office's third investigation into the National Programme for IT in the NHS in the Parliamentary recess.

No informatics directorate at new DH

There will be no informatics directorate at the slimmed down Department of Health that will be retained once the NHS Commissioning Board is established in Leeds.

ITK2 launches with doc info standards

The Department of Health and Royal College of Physicians have made a co-ordinated launch of an interactive guide to support professional standards for clinical documentation.

Joint IT committee takes up N3 speeds

A representative of the BMA and Royal College of GPs' Joint IT Committee is to join the N3 project board to take up GPs' concerns about connection speeds.

Trafford completes Ensemble integration

Trafford Healthcare NHS Trust has completed an integration project to link 14 clinical departmental systems using InterSystems Ensemble.

Eccles and Hamer back EHI CCIO Campaign

The EHI CCIO Campaign has picked up two further significant endorsements from the medical and nursing directors at NHS Connecting for Health.

"There are now three organisations instead of one... show me a DH mediated ‘cut' in NHS bureaucracy that only doubles the number of non patient-facing staff, and I'll eat my iPad."

"It works!"

Steve Fairclough, IT director at Morecambe Bay, delivers his key message about Lorenzo to the board.

News of a creative health use for legacy technology reaches us via the website of the Cotswold Journal, where "a red phone box has become the first in the country to be fitted with defibrillation equipment that could help save the lives of cardiac arrest victims."

BT has agreed to pay to put the equipment in five of its old phone boxes that have been adopted by their local communities, and the village of Lower Slaughter is the first to take delivery. It's also the 1,500th village to adopt its phone box. Others have been turned into information centres, libraries and even art exhibitions.

EHI CCIO Campaign launch event

The EHI CCIO Campaign was given a formal launch at the BT Tower this week.