The ill-fated £11.4 billion National Programme for IT, set up in 2002, is to be "urgently dismantled" following criticism that it is not value for taxpayers' money.
After an official review, the "one size fits all" project will be replaced by cheaper regional schemes allowing local health trusts and GPs to develop or buy individual computer systems to suit their needs.
The Coalition's Major Projects Authority, established to review Labour's financial commitments to gauge if they provide value for money, found the scheme was not fit to provide services to the NHS, which has to make about £20bn in savings.
It comes after a damning report from a cross-party committee of MPs concluded that the programme had proved "beyond the capacity of the Department of Health to deliver".
This was first published in September 2011
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