The National Programme for IT, approved by the Department of Health in 2002, was stopped in 2011 after the contracted companies failed to complete the project. However, the contract with one of the companies was extended through 2017 to avoid litigation, according to the report.
The total estimated cost to taxpayers will be about £9.6 billion, including the additional expenditure for the contract extension. A Department of Health official is quoted in the report as saying the government has realized the “weaknesses of a top-down, centrally-imposed IT system.”
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