NHS reveals it has only spent £1.3m on care.data to date

Costs for controversial project have so far been restricted to raising awareness

The NHS's controversial care.data programme has cost NHS England £1.3m to date, with the vast majority of the money being spent on "raising awareness" leaflets sent to millions of households in the UK.

The disclosure was made in a written response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by Computing.

The request, made in March, asked how much the NHS has spent on the programme to date, and how much it intends to spend on care.data overall.

In response, NHS England said that the 2013/14 spend was £1.328m, but that it did not hold the information on how much it intends to spend.

"This is still subject to the approvals process on the overall care.data programme," it said.

Of the total spend, £926,778 was allocated to distribution company Leaflet Co Ltd for the handling of the care.data awareness leaflets, while £308,491 was paid to Williams Lea, a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm, which has been a managed service provider for print and print management services to central government.

The FOI request revealed that £45,504 was paid to Promotional Logistics Ltd, while other suppliers paid included stop-motion animation firm Matinai (£16,620), market research company BDRC Continental (£14,325), travel management firm Redfern Travel (£5,530) and production company AV Network (£4,140).

Reports have suggested that the total spend of care.data could reach £50m.

Last month, NHS England responded to rising criticism over its plans for a centralised patient record database by postponing the care.data programme for six months.

It followed protests from patients, doctors and privacy groups over plans to extract patient record information from GPs' surgeries to a centralised database, from where it would be sold to pharmaceutical companies, researchers and other organisations.

Last week, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) claimed that anonymous data was not covered under the Data Protection Act, meaning that if anonymous patient record data were to be leaked or mis-used, it would not consider it against the law - if anyone found out about it.

The full breakdown of suppliers and costs for the care.data programme can be found in the list below:

LEAFLET CO LTD £926,778.88
WILLIAMS LEA LTD £308,491.43
PROMOTIONAL LOGISTICS LTD £45,504.92
MATINAI £16,620.00
BDRC CONTINENTAL £14,325.00
Redfern Travel £5,530.11
AV NETWORK LTD £4,140.00
Transfer of costs for Regional P&I event held 16/12/13 £1,930.50
MERCURE LEICESTER CITY 1,379.00
NORTHERN BALLET (meeting room hire) £1,065.30
NHS WEST YORKSHIRE CSU £914.00
CALDER CONFERENCES £500.50
MANKTELOW LTD £240.00
PLAIN ENGLISH CAMPAIGN LTD £200.00
XLNT RESULTS LTD £176.10
ROSEMARY & THYME CATERING LTD £174.90
EUREST SERVICES £130.39

TOTAL £1,328,101.03