NHS refuses to pay its phone bill

The NHS National Programme for IT (NPfIT) is holding back almost a third of the initial payments due to its main supplier BT, it confirmed on Tuesday.

In a statement issued to Government Computing News the programme said that it had refused to pay £300,000 - one third of an "initial payment" of £900,000 - for a key part of the programme known as the data spine. The penalties come following technical problems at the testing stages of the spine project.

"There was a reduction in payments to BT due to some availability issues with the spine," said an NPfIT statement.

"However this should be seen in the context of much early success in the national programme, which is highly complex and remains firmly on track to deliver benefits to patients and clinicians alike. The spine issues have not had a fundamental impact on implementation plans."

There have also been delays to the NPfIT's electronic booking service, particularly in connecting it to doctors' systems.

"Bookings have been taking place at early adopter sites through Choose and Book as planned throughout summer 2004. Whilst this hasn't been through the use of fully integrated systems, this will not impact on the rollout of Choose and Book, which is progressing well and to plan," said the statement.