IT delays will not put Kingston Hospital off introducing a new computerised care records system, it has said.

Kingston Hospital is next in line for the centralised medical records service which will cater to 50m patients and have an online booking system for hospital appointments, e-prescriptions, digital X-ray images.

Staff have told the board of the first hospital due to go live, St Mary’s, that “there were significant uncertainties over the scheduled go-live date being achievable”, leading to a month’s delay.

In a joint statement, St Mary’s, BT and the London Programme for IT said the delay will “allow for extra testing and assurance work, ensuring the quality and reliability of the new system when it goes live.”

But a spokeswoman for Kingston Hospital said it still planned to bring in the system in October.

She said: “This date for ‘go live’ was previously agreed at a trust board meeting in January 2008 and the trust has since been planning and implementing measures to ensure a smooth transition to CRS in October 2008.”

Last year the National Audit Office predicted that the total cost of the National Programme for IT would be £12.4billion.

The programme, now in its sixth year, is reputed to be the largest non-military IT project in the world but is running up to two years behind schedule in places.