LAS gives up on new software until 2012

The London Ambulance Service NHS Trust has had so many problems with its new CommandPoint software that it will not attempt another go-live until next year.

The service failed to successfully launch the software in June, when system faults forced the control room to revert to using paper.

In a statement released to eHealth Insider, the service said it is working with the supplier, Northrop Grunman, to investigate the problems encountered.

“Once the report is complete and we have a full understanding of what happened we can decide next steps. We do, however, expect to reintroduce CommandPoint in the early part of 2012 after we are completely satisfied that the system problems have been resolved.”

An initial report into the incident stated the system went live at 5am on 8 June. At 10am, the decision was made to rely on paper because of problems.

These were; communication software failure resulting in disruptive restarts of the system, workstations flickering because of coding errors, and the automatic assignment of vehicles not functioning properly.

The control room had to rely on using paper until later the same evening when the old CTAK system was switched back on.

A project update to the trust board in August said that the core faults that had caused the system failure had been fixed, but there was work to be done to make sure there were no more bugs with the system.

Director of information management and technology Peter Suter said the interfacing between the systems worked, but testing failed to identify how they would behave in a live environment.

“Northrop Grunman have also been very open in their response, acknowledging that with hindsight they did not do enough to fully assess and understand how the LAS would use CommandPoint in a live operation,” he said in the report.

Staff confidence in the system was now a key issue for the service as was required to ensure the success of a second go-live.

“The damage done to staff confidence could not be underestimated and it would not be advisable to go live for a second time with workarounds,” the board minutes read.

The approach to the next go live would include a schedule of live tests, switching from the current CTAK system to CommandPoint for up to six hours and then back to CTAK. The sequence will be repeated several times to “give overall assurance and confidence in the system.”