Re: @Chris Miller
You are right.
However, the goal of a single and effective IT and management system across the NHS is a good idea, but government organisations (and a lot of private industry) seem to be useless and properly specifying and developing such a system, and the contract inevitably go to the usual suspects who seem worse at software development than a room full of 2nd year comp sci students.
The answer? I don't know, but I guess that having a small group work with a couple of NHS trusts to prototype something, get proper feedback from those actually using it (not those who fear it, or those paying for it) and then pay more to scale & deploy it when proven would be a good start.