05.09.12
NPfIT supplier CSC no longer exclusive records provider
The Department of Health has finalised its new agreement with IT services provider CSC, lifting the obligation on trusts in the North, Midlands and East of England to use its electronic care records system Lorenzo.
The move will save £1bn, to be reinvested into the NHS, the DH has stated. 10 trusts had implemented the Lorenzo system to date.
The contract with CSC dates back to 2003 under the now-defunct National Programme for IT (NPfIT). The new agreement means that CSC’s exclusive rights as the only provider of clinical IT systems has been removed, leaving trusts with the freedom to decide which system is best suited to their needs.
However, if trusts wish to upgrade their patient records systems they will have to use their own budgets.
In 2008, the National Audit Office found that “the development of Lorenzo has taken much longer than originally planned, with the delays attributed in part to an underestimation by all parties of the scale and complexity involved in building a new system from scratch”.
Health minister, Simon Burns said: “We’ve removed the restrictive, top-down, centralised approach and given the local NHS the power to make their own decisions about which IT systems they use.
“The modern NHS still needs healthcare IT systems to exchange information securely and meet the needs of their patients. By re-shaping this contract, delays will be avoided in delivering much needed IT systems to the NHS, and will ensure the investment made to date is not wasted.”
Minister for the Cabinet Office Francis Maude said that “today’s announcement will leave suppliers in no doubt that we will act to strip out waste from contracts where they offer poor value for the taxpayer”.
Mike Lawrie, CSC’s president and chief executive officer said: “Under this agreement CSC will continue to have the opportunity to support the NHS Information and Communications Technology infrastructure through deployment of our groundbreaking Lorenzo base product solutions, now rigorously tested and approved for wide-scale deployment across NHS.”
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