Mr Nasty hits out at media black-out on good news

Mr Granger also hit out at the way media coverage of the national IT programme has focused on its difficulties and neglected its successes.

'Rolling out two sets of new software to GPs in the last 12 months; some 8,600 locations; on schedule. Radio silence.

TV silence. Newspaper silence, ' Mr Granger said.

'Rolling out complex interactions between primary and secondary care; hooking things up to national infrastructure; complex. Lots of noise.' There was, however, one recent article which Mr Granger enjoyed: 'I was delighted with the comments in The Wall Street Journal that I am the 'Mr Nasty' that Microsoft fears. We have got a very good deal for the NHS by buying things [from Microsoft] at scale.'