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The Canberra Times
The Canberra Times
Lucy Bladen

Review of invoices paid by ACT Health Directorate completed

A review of invoices paid by the ACT Health Directorate to a company hosting the digital health record has not found any irregularities, the territory's Health Minister has revealed.

Rachel Stephen-Smith told the Assembly the directorate had reviewed a representative sample of 90 invoices and all had been reconciled appropriately.

There are fears health bureaucrats may have wrongly paid a series of invoices for IT services, after an audit found the directorate was billed for services inconsistent with the terms of a multimillion-dollar contract.

The fears were realised after the company hosting the digital health record, NTT Ltd Australia, sent 118 invoices totalling $7.9 million in one month alone.

The possible wrongly paid invoices related to being billed for services where the directorate received the invoice months after a cut-off and accruals for services before ACT Health had even signed off on the work.

Ms Stephen-Smith said the directorate had audited about 10 per cent of all invoices paid under the contract and all had been paid appropriately.

"Earlier this week I was advised by the ACT Health directorate that they have undertaken full checks of 90 of the invoices in the NTT contract and of those invoices they have all reconciled appropriately and there were no irregularities once further information was provided by NTT," she said.

"The health directorate will continue to undertake further analysis of the representative sample of invoices to inform next steps."

ACT Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith in question time on Thursday. Picture by Sitthixay Ditthavong

The digital health record collated 40 separate paper and digital records into the one system, and is used to manage individual health records. It came into place in late-2022.

A separate audit found ACT Health's Digital Solutions Division was focused on delivering the project without any regard to cost and were operating millions of dollars over annual budgets.

One audit has revealed a massive blowout of more than $160 million in the cost to deliver the digital health record with the delivery and maintenance expected to cost $378 million. It was initially expected to cost $213 million.

An extra $80 million in extra funding will also be needed to support the record over the next three years. But a report has warned even with changes to financial controls there is a risk of runaway costs with the program.

The report said the ACT Health's digital solutions division delivered the project with "ineffective financial management and cost control".

The ACT Integrity Commission is investigating the conduct of Health executives during the rollout of the digital health record.

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