Ahead of Wednesday's pre-Budget report, the chancellor told the BBC that the £12.7 billion (US$20.9 billion) programme was "something that I think we don't need to go ahead with just now".

The comments created a public relations frenzy in Whitehall, as government officials scrambled to tell the press that the chancellor "mis-spoke", and that what he meant was that ministers were considering curtailing some elements of the programme. Cuts would be aimed at saving up to £600 million over the next few years from the NHS budget, the Financial Times reported.

A spokesperson at the Department of Health said: "The chancellor and the secretary of state for health have examined options for savings on the NHS IT system and more details will be set out in due course."

Liberal Democrat MPs immediately called for the programme to be "abandoned in its entirety", and the Conservatives labelled it a "disaster".

The National Programme has a number of elements, including the rollout of hospital patient administration systems, electronic care records, digital X-rays, electronic prescriptions and hospital-wide broadband. The first two are far from complete, but it is not clear which, if either, will be curtailed.