Government spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) has called for spending on the NHS’s controversial £12bn IT upgrade programme to be stopped before more money is wasted.

In a damning report, the NAO said the services it had received to date – some £6.4bn worth as of 31 March 2011 – represented poor value for money and it had “no confidence” that finishing the project would turn things around.

“The original vision for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS will not be realised. The NHS is now getting far fewer systems than planned despite the department paying contractors almost the same amount of money [as was originally planned],” said Amyas Morse, head of the NAO.