Lib Dems would scrap NHS National IT Programme

Just watching the Lib Dem's conference on BBC Parliament and Norman Lamb, Libe Dem's Health spokesman, has just laid into the NHS National Programme for IT. Hardly controversial - but this is the Lib Dem's we are talking about - as the NPfIT is estimated to cost around £12bn and has been a bit of a farce to date.

"Who would trust this government with a national database of health records," he said.

The green IT angle to this story is that the NHS, like all government organisations is trying to promote sustainable use of technology - which to some degree could mean using less new IT. Not easy to do when you are planning to spend billions on new tech.

But the alternative angle is that IT, through the use of technologies such as video-conferencing - the high end of which has been developed to into an system called Health Presence for remote diagnosis - can actually be used to tackle carbon emissions from transport.