Mr. Tony O'Brien:

As a result of the Government's policy decision on e-health, we have appointed our first chief information officer, Mr. Richard Corbridge, who I am very pleased to be able to steal from the National Health Service. He is leading on a range of projects which include the roll-out of the individual health identifier which is now governed by legislation. Much of the preparatory work has been done. There is a process in place to check its robustness before it goes live.

The national children's hospital will be the exemplar project. It has been designed as a paperless hospital. We will be testing all of the relevant systems we would wish to use on a national basis. We are also identifying a number of major information systems. For example, our laboratory information system has completed the procurement system.