PPARS Fiasco

C

Conan

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Now that the HSE seem to have abandoned the infamous PPARS system (and wasted €130m) will anybody have to face the music? Can we expect to see dismissals, or at least some financial sanctions? Will anybody resign - political or otherwise?
If this happened in the "real world" could the CEO/CFO survive?

Or will this be yet another public sector/political cock-up where no one is accountable and no lessons are learned, since its only the tax payers money.

And now they will presumably start all over again with yet another new system amd more cost.
 
I would happen to agree with you - I worked in a Major Dublin hospital in the IT department - and as far as 3 years ago the IT department heads were speaking of this as a disaster - and were also saying the same of the "ISOFT" solution....
 
I think it's also safe to assume that the health minister knew about this before the election too (I know I would if one of my projects that cost 130m to build was going to be scrapped).

The buck stops where Mrs Harney???
 
And the day after the Dail goes into recess too. A more cynical man might say there was some coincidence there.
 
I didn't hear it properly, but did the woman on the radio (Moaning Ireland) this morning say that the reason the HSE need a different system is so that they can tell the number of nurses employed at the touch of a button?

It sounds like they need a spread-sheet and a couple of secretaries. How many years would 130 million cover of that?
 
Firefly said:
The buck stops where Mrs Harney???
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You are right, she should sack all of those involved. No reasonable person could expect her to manage the project directly but it is her job to punish those who screwed up. From the size of the project there must be 50 or more people in her employ who should get the axe.
 
One of the problems with the PPARS system was that it was conceived of before the days of the all unifying HSE and there was multiple union agreements for all grades of staff (not just nurses) throughout all the Health Board regions. Probably each Health Board region was doing it's own thing.

When they started developing it only then did they realise the complexity of the system required. On top of that medical staff and their supports don't work the normal 9 -5 and their positions don't equate to 1 as per full time equivilants. An off the shelf package would not have suited.

However I would suspect that consultants and staff stubbornness cost the State €130m. :mad:
 
boris said:
When they started developing it only then did they realise the complexity of the system required.
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Well the blame for that lies with the analysts.
Analyse the requirements....make a bid/quote...create technical specs....develop. (I'm leaving out a couple of intermediary steps here but it happens in that order). If they realised it was wrong, then the analysts should be booted.

boris said:
However I would suspect that consultants and staff stubbornness cost the State €130m. :mad:
Click to expand...

You give any decent (within reason) IT house (apart from the likes of Andersons, TATA, IBM etc) with 50 staff (30 Dev & 20 QA) 18-24 months (max!!!) and I guarantee you they could have that system delivered.

Hell, give ME 50 million Bertie and I'll have it done for you in 2 years !!!

the level of incompetence shown in this is mind-boggling....
 
Pique318 said:
Well the blame for that lies with the analysts.
Analyse the requirements....make a bid/quote...create technical specs....develop. (I'm leaving out a couple of intermediary steps here but it happens in that order). If they realised it was wrong, then the analysts should be booted.
Click to expand...


I agree with you but the point I was making that from what I know and have heard from people working in the HSE is that when they tried to create a universal system (after system analysis and defining user requirements) with the formation of the HSE (and even prior to that) is that they were faced with various work practices that were particular to each Board.

Even a lot of these "practices" were unknown until the system development brough automation to their payroll. The system just exploded to being unmanageable and too cumbersome. Even Mary Harney admitted this in the Dail shortly after taking over the portfolio.

The HSE is now the biggest employer in the State so it will be interesting as to how they will create a new system and what they have submitted for. I will imagine there will be a lot of restrictions on where they can spend on their next development.
 
Don't know too much about it, other than bits I've read in the press (and we know how acurate that is for getting the "real" story), but I'd say:- A classic example of thinking that implementing an IT system can sort out a mess: it's been proved many times that this doesn't work. You need to sort the mess out first and then automate. Doing it the other way round just automates the mess, and costs a huge amount in the meantime.- Having said that, E130m is an obscene amount. If you got a team of 30 or so good IT people and gave them E4m each, you'd have a pretty good system in less than two years.....
 
Jeeze NASA probably spend less, into todays terms, coming up with their mission control systems.
Speaking from IT project perspective the problems must have been visible years ago and someone should have shouted stop.
Some people did very well out of this.
How many contractors, consultants, project managers, etc bought new cars and new houses out of the money they earned on this project?

If this was in the private sector, the company would have pulled the plug on it years ago.
Also there would have been some form of time and financial constraints built into contracts.
The facts are that the staff within the HSE/Health Boards/Department of Health who were responsible for this project are inept.
Either they are corrupt i.e. accepted knock backs from consultants/contractors to keep the project going or they are completly useless irresponsible gobsh***.
Take your pick.
I say name and shame.
Drag them in front of a public accounts committee and make them answer the questions how they recklessly wasted OUR money.

But I suppose they are just going to get another benchmarking reward soon.
 
Just for the record, in my 20+ years in the private sector, I've seen many, many multi-million projects either canned or just quietly ignored. A quick Google showed this blog which lists a mixture of public & private IT project failures, starting with Ford's $400m project failure. In fairness, there are more public than private IT projects on the list, but I'd suspect that many of the details of IT project failures never get into the public domain. I don't recall too many people being fired either - the guilty usually seemed to get promoted or moved sideways.

From the little I heard about the HSE's recent decision, they are seeking to implement an even more ambitious system of which PPARS would be just one part - Did I get this right?
 
Sure the HSE are only amateurs when it comes to chucking cash down the drain. Check out the NPfIT system for the NHS in the UK. Tens of billions of STG£ and counting.....
 
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