Choose and Book

Have you notice lots of shiny new computers and IT equipment in your GP surgery of late?

For this you can thank your government's wonderful scheme- Choose And Book.

At the last count the cost of the overall National Programme for IT (NPfIT) scheme has been estimated at 30 billion.

Its aims are laudible. Eventually, wherever you are as a patient, your complete medical record should be instantly available. You go on holiday, travelling hundreds of miles from home, only to become ill. Wouldn't it be great to know that the first Dr to see already knows exactly what medications you're taking, and what illnesses you've had in the past.

This is some way off yet.

At present we have Choose And Book, or Booze and Chuck as it's better known.

With C&B I can refer a patient for a hospital outpatient appointment while they sit with me in the consultation room.

And this is where the shiny new computers fit in. I'm supposed to log onto the C&B website with the patient's details. I'm supposed to offer the patient up to 5 different choices of where to go. I discuss the options, and either book the appointment there and then, or give the patient a telephone number to ring and referral number to quote.

This, apparently, is all supposed to only take 30 seconds.

Our clunky old computers would never have been fast enough to cope, so the whole lot have been upgraded. All the broadband connections have been upgraded too; we now have an N3 connection (whatever that means). Now do this across the whole country, and it's already getting expensive.

But do the new computers do it in 30 seconds? Of course not.