I work at a company that implements medical IT solutions for hospitals and anything with the NHS takes 3-5 times longer than in the US and other parts of Europe.
Gov't IT projects suck because the RFP process is the most waterfall thing in existence, meaning the project is doomed from the start. And it goes downhill from there, with absurd amounts of politics and turf-protecting on all sides.
It's a truism that a bureaucracy always seeks to expand itself. They could all be brilliant at it, but the problem is a) it takes time and b) isn't actually necessary oh and c) they are all paid a fortune to do it, including their gold-plated pensions.
But the same thing happens in private industry, too. Constantly. And nobody would ever label a private bureaucratic mess as "there to provide jobs first and turn a profit second". That was my bone of contention with your post, you're mistaking generic incompetence for something more perverse.
The PCS union picketed Downing Street over proposals to reduce their redundancy package from 3 years salary to 2...
That might be the case for the bureaucrats in the NHS (of which there are too many) but I'm pretty sure that most of the actual front line staff are there to help patients.