National Programme for IT has saved NHS more than £200m

NHS systems are saving money, says the government

The NHS National Programme for IT delivered £208m of savings by April 2007 – despite major delays to parts of the controversial project.

Tough "payment on delivery" contracts mean that the cost of delays have been absorbed by suppliers.

The figures come from IT systems that have so far been deployed in one fifth of NHS trusts. The health service spent £2.4bn of the estimated £12bn total projected costs in the same period as the savings were achieved.

In an annual report on the benefits to the NHS - requested by the National Audit Office - the Department of Health laid out savings which came primarily from the implementation of digital imaging - replacing costly film x-rays - and the decommissioning of old IT systems.

Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said that despite delays in the programme, on balance he was happy with progress.

"I'm satisfied with the programme so far," he said. "And none of the savings outlined today include benefits to patient care – this is just pound signs."

The National Pogramme for IT contains four main strands:

A broadband network connecting health sites – known as N3 - has already been procured and implemented. Savings have been made from decommissioning legacy systems.

The choose-and-book system is an electronic service which allows patient to pick the place and time of their appointments – and is now in place in 98 per cent of GP practices.

Half of GP surgeries are now on the GP2GP system which will allow the transfer of medical records between surgeries.

Other parts of the system yet to be completed are the electronic health record service and the electronic transmission of prescriptions.

The NHS is waiting for a University College of London evaluation of early adopters of summary care records – which will contain basic medical information - before putting the scheme into the mainstream.

Early indications suggest that an average of 0.06 per cent of people are opting out from having their information recorded on the system.

The electronic prescriptions service has been delayed, mainly because suppliers have been told to focus on other parts of the programme.

"We needed to help them to prioritise," said Dr Gillian Braunold, joint GP clinical lead for Connecting for Health, the NHS agency running the National Programme.