A controversial project aimed at creating a single research database of GP records has suffered major budget cuts, it has been revealed.

The programme was due to have a budget of £8.8 million this year – but this has been cut to £2.5 million by NHS England, the Health Service Journal reported. The ‘General Practice Data for Planning and Research’ programme was the latest attempt to harness NHS data for research purposes, making it available for bulk analysis of the kind that can be performed by artificial intelligence. It ran into controversy amid concerns about the protection of individual patient data – and was due to be implemented with a series of safeguards. Ministers and NHS officials had been keen to get the project up and running following the success of the innovative British trials of COVID treatments.

Now it has fallen victim to the pressure on NHS England to reduce its central budgets, according to the latest report. Just £1.1 million is now available to continue the project this year as £1.4 million has been spent in the first six months of the year. The HSJ quotes papers from NHS Digital stating that the funding that is now available is “insufficient to cover programme resources, delivery commitments and comms plans to meet the ministerial commitments… to allow for the collection to take place.”

A spokesman for the agency said: “We are not working to a specific timescale and will not complete our work this financial year. We have been engaging with patients, GPs and other stakeholders to understand any concerns and to baseline current understanding.”