How is NHS IT going to fare in the budget?

Electronic patient records system

The chancellor Alistair Darling has told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show the GBP£12.7 billion NHS IT programme - already running years late - was "something that I think we don't need to go ahead with just now." The Tories are calling it a "massive U-turn" over the electronic patient records system.

The electronic patient record system, which is thought to have cost about GBP£12 billion so far, was commissioned in 2002 by then prime minister Tony Blair, and was meant to be completed by 2010.

It was supposed to computerise medical records in a central database and link up more than 30,000 GPs to nearly 300 hospitals.

Darling said he would be delaying parts of the scheme in Wednesday's pre-Budget Report as it was "not essential to the front line," the BBC reported.

The move may save hundreds of millions, but Darling admitted it was only a fraction of total spending cuts needed. The Tories and Lib Dems have been calling for the IT system, which has been hit by costly delays, to be axed.

Treasury officials rushed to explain that the government was looking for "significant savings" of around GBP£600 million over the medium term by cutting back some features that are less important for patients. A senior health department official, meanwhile, said bluntly that "the chancellor mis-spoke" in saying the project to create an electronic medical record would be scrapped, the Financial Times reports.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats

Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said it was "another government IT procurement disaster."

"After seven years Labour have finally acknowledged what we've said for years, that the procurement for NHS IT was costing billions and not delivering," he said.

The Conservatives have called for a moratorium on all government computer projects, ahead of the publication of the government's five-year IT strategy later this week.

They say Labour has spent GBP£100 billion on IT since 1997 and contracts worth another GBP£70 billion are due to be renewed or commissioned in the next two years.

While the Liberal Democrats said the NHS programme had been "flawed from the start."

British Medical Association

Despite the government scaling back on the project because of money, Dr Grant Ingrams, from the British Medical Association, said the system currently scheduled to come into effect would result in the NHS saving money.

"It's an essential tool for clinicians, for doctors and other staff to be able to treat patients," he said.

"The NHS pays out a third of a billion pounds a year on mistakes; a lot of that could be put right if the IT was in place."

For now, all we can do is wait until the pre-Budget report to see what changes the chancellor does make.

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