Government IT tricky, says Blair

PM says some problems are inevitable with such big programmes

The Prime Minister has said difficulties with government IT are to be expected, especially given the scale of the programmes involved.

‘IT projects in government have always been difficult – actually, IT projects in the private sector are pretty difficult,’ Tony Blair told the House of Commons Liaison Committee last week.

Blair also accepted that lack of buy-in from GPs is affecting the NHS ebookings system, but denied it was hampering the whole £6bn programme.

‘I do not think it affects the overall IT service within the NHS.

‘The reason we went slower was to make sure that we got the technology working properly,’ said Blair.