The National Audit Office, the government's spending watchdog, is investigating how the NHS has spent the £6bn it has been given to revolutionise its computer systems.
In October 2002, the Department of Health established a national IT programme designed to improve patient care by ensuring doctors and other NHS staff could communicate more easily.
Its main aims were to make patients' records more accessible to staff nationwide, to make it easier for GPs to book hospital appointments for their patients, and to provide a system to store and send prescriptions and x-rays electronically.
The new computer network was also designed to give GPs and primary care trusts feedback on the standard of care that patients were getting, and to ensure that the NHS could cope with present and future demands.
The inquiry follows a string of bungled IT programmes, introduced in different government agencies, including the Criminal Records Bureau and Passport Service.
Although the government has set aside £2.3bn to fund the programme until 2006, the total value of the contracts that have so far been awarded is £6.2bn.
The NAO, which independently audits government departments, is now checking up on the project. It will investigate how the contracts were awarded, whether they will deliver value for money, and examine the department's progress.
Earlier this year, Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee which works hand-in-hand with the NAO, wrote to the office to complain that NHS staff had not been properly consulted over the new programme.
Similar concerns were expressed by the British Medical Association, and in April, Peter Hutton, the chairman of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, resigned from the advisory board.
However, Richard Granger, who is in charge of the programme, said more than 2,000 doctors had been consulted.
A spokesman for the NAO said last night: "We have been monitoring the programme for some time."
The programme has suffered other teething troubles, most notably in March, when the NHS cancelled a £90m email contract with the business and technology solutions company EDS, citing delivery problems and low take-up. The two parties eventually reached a confidential settlement.
But problems with new technology are not confined to the health service. In June, the Cabinet Office cancelled a £83m contract for a secure data centre to host government websites, saying the services contracted for had not been delivered or accepted.
The Immigration Service and the Prison Service have fallen victim to ghosts in the machine - as has the Passport Office.
In July, the Commons work and pensions committee, scrutinising the government's IT track record, called for more transparency when it came to computer failures.
The committee described the Child Support Agency's new system for working out payments, which is two years late and well over budget, as "clearly defective".
· Foundation hospital chiefs have warned the government its NHS reform programme could fail if bureaucratic interference and financial cuts continue to undermine their autonomy. The warning came after the government took back £1m bonuses from foundation hospitals that had won three stars and set their borrowing rates lower than they had expected.
