Support among doctors for the National Health Service's £6.2bn information technology programme is falling fast, a survey shows. Only 2 per cent of family doctors rate themselves as "very enthusiastic" about the programme, against 66 per cent of all doctors declaring a year ago that they were fairly or very enthusiastic. The sharp fall in enthusiasm follows a report last month from the National Audit Office on the electronic booking system, which warned that 60 per cent of GPs were more or less hostile to a system that was meant to be the first big part of the IT programme to be delivered.

The NAO said that while doctors' support was crucial it might now be "hard to secure".