Poor IT financing is costing the NHS more than £166,000 every working day, according to a specialist financing and vendor marketplace.

Smartfundit.com claims that for every £1 borrowed to finance IT purchases and leases in the NHS, 12p is needlessly wasted on admin costs, charges and higher than necessary interest rates.

The NHS could increase its IT spending power by £41.5m a year, equivalent to £280,000 per NHS Trust, by cutting out the broker middleman and sourcing IT finance from independent online marketplaces, the report claims.

Using proprietary data as well as government and industry statistics, Smartfundit.com modelled the various costs involved in sourcing IT finance.

These included executive and administrative time, office costs and legal representation, broker fees, finance provider charges and higher interest rates.

The costs for three different scenarios - sourcing finance via a broker, via a technology vendor and direct with finance providers - were compared against sourcing via an online IT finance marketplace to reveal the 'cost of poor IT financing'.

"Sourcing specialist IT finance can be a complex task, made all the more difficult by the lack of transparent advice and information," said Suki Gallagher, chief executive at Smartfundit.com.

"Unsurprisingly, NHS procurement units are falling foul of hidden costs and are unlikely to get the best deal possible."

Smartfundit.com claims that its research underscores the financial imperative of looking at alternative ways of sourcing finance, such as letting finance providers bid for business online.

"It is about time buyers took back control and turned IT financing into a borrowers' market," said Gallagher.

The NHS is facing a second investigation into its £12bn National Programme for IT following a warning by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee that the programme may never succeed.