No mention of the NPfIT in Darling's Budget speech

The £11bn cost savings to come from efficiency and transparency will be left to individual departments

Departments to announce cuts individually

Despite widespread speculation that elements of the NPfIT would be axed during chancellor Alistair Darling’s Budget today, there was no mention of the programme in his speech at all.

There has been growing demand for the Summary Care Records System as it stands to be abandoned or changed significantly, most recently by Health 2020 in its recent report Fixing NHS IT: How to save £1bn and get IT working for patients. Industry commentators have speculated that this would have been the most likely of the government's IT projects to be abandoned to help make up the £11bn in IT savings announced by Brown in his digital Britain speech on Monday.

How this £11bn in savings – promised to come from increased transparency and IT efficiency – will be made was not made clear in Darling’s Budget today, although he did say that department ministers would announce the cuts specific to their department individually.