Fujitsu has submitted a claim for payment from NHS Connecting for Health (NHS CfH) after it was axed from the £12.7bn National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in May.

Computing understands that the claim, known as a procedure initiation notice, is not necessarily a precursor to legal action, but is the first step in the process established by the contract to resolve issues.

A spokesman for Fujitsu said: "Fujitsu Services has sent a Procedure Initiation Notice to NHS CfH. We hope we will be able to successfully resolve any issues between Fujitsu and NHS CfH through this mechanism."

Fujitsu was fired from the NPfIT after walking away from talks revolving around whether or not it would be paid for extra work.

The original NPfIT contracts, set up by Connecting for health ex-chief executive Richard Granger, were considered by some of the suppliers to be overly strict. Accenture also dropped out of the programme in 2006.

A spokesman for Connecting for Health would not comment on the procedure initiation notice.

"Under the terms of a joint confidentiality agreement with Fujitsu, we are not able to enter into discussion about these allegations," he said.

Neither party would confirm or deny a claim in The Independent that the vendor is asking for £700m.