The nine projects at the heart of NHS IT

The NHS is part way through one of the world's biggest IT projects, a colossal £6.2bn programme which won't be completed until the end of the decade.

The aim? To replaced an ageing patchwork of 5,000 different computer systems with a nationwide infrastructure connecting more than 100,000 doctors, 380,000 nurses and 50,000 other health professionals.

Over the next few pages we look at the major IT projects that form the programme - and see how far they have progressed. Some are already complete, some are ahead of their targets - and others are running behind schedule. See the links at the bottom of the page for the full story on each of the main projects.(Please note: There is now an updated version of this story which discusses the status of the ten projects at the heart of NHS IT as of November 2008, which can be found here)

The impact of the national programme will vary across the NHS. For example, Dr Richard Vautrey, who is on the British Medical Associations GP committee, said that so far he has seen little impact.

He said: "We haven't seen much of the national IT programme affect that yet. We aren't using Choose and Book yet, and electronic transfer of prescriptions hasn't really affected the vast majority of practices yet. I would expect that to change over the next year."

But the spending will yield some benefits for GPs, he said: "If Choose and Book works properly, to be able to refer patients directly would be nice for patients. The Electronic Prescription Service has the potential to help with some patients in terms of repeat prescriptions but for the majority it won't make that much difference."

Despite an initial burst of enthusiasm, support from doctors for the project appears to be waning, a survey by Medix found.

NHS Connecting for Health, which oversees the National Programme for IT in the NHS, said a drop in support is to be expected at this point in the project.

It said in a statement: "It is well known that there is usually a dip in confidence in IT change programmes as early implementation gets underway - this is the phase that NHS Connecting for Health is in."

But the biggest impact of the project is likely to be on hospitals rather than GPs, because they are still much more reliant on paper documents.

Alan Brown, director of information management and technology, West London Mental Health Trust, is already seeing the N3 national broadband network in action. He said: "We've got over 30 sites and it really helps communication. We are quite a disparate trust and this helps us operate as a whole."

And of the broader programme, he said: "It's a no-brainer. It's got to be done but it's highly complex and difficult to do."

There are number of main projects to the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS. Clink on the links below for more details of each of the main NHS IT projects - and how far they have got so far.

The projects:

• NHS Care Records Service

• Choose and Book

• The Electronic Prescription Service

• N3 national broadband network

• Picture Archiving and Communications System (Pacs)

• The Spine

• The Quality Management and Analysis System

• GP2GP record transfer

• Contact - a central email and directory service for the NHS