The botched NHS IT system, due to arrive two months ago, has cost Kingston Hospital more than £500,000 so far.

Management at the hospital are considering seeking reimbursement from NHS London for staff and training costs linked to the delay in the roll-out of the Care Records Service, which would create an electronic record for every patient in the country.

The hospital is also having to negotiate with at least five existing IT contractors, who expect to be paid for a full year regardless of when the records service arrives and supersedes them.

The contract with the largest of these IT companies is worth £380,000 a year.

Kingston was supposed to be the next in line for the system but the roll out has now been postponed until April.

Acting chief executive Alan Pearse said: “We need to keep all the teams working on this in place until April.

“Staff have to be retrained in February and March.

"What we want to do is approach Healthcare for London when we have that figure and we would need some compensation for that.”

Kingston Hospital is already struggling to shave off £6.5m from its budget to meet government efficiency targets.

Glitches at Royal Free Hospital, the first to go live, have cost it £7.2m.

The national IT project run by BT has so far cost £12 billion and is four years behind schedule.