npit announcement expected next week

02 Apr 2009

BT, the local service provider for London, is to take over responsibility for supporting hospitals in the south of England running Cerner Millennium software.

The deal is thought to cover support for the eight NHS sites currently running an initial version of Cerner Millennium supplied by Fujitsu, the local service provider that parted company with the NHS IT programme last May.

Details of the deal, which may include taking a handful of further trusts live with Cerner, are due to be announced next week. The price tag for BT’s contract extension is rumoured to be in excess of £100m.

EHI understands the outline of a framework deal is also likely to be announced for the 30-plus NHS hospital trusts in the south of England, still waiting for a new IT system five years after the start of the NHS IT programme. Agreement on these new choice arrangement has yet to be reached.

Trusts will be offered a choice of either Cerner or iSoft, delivered by BT or Computer Sciences Corporation. Community and mental health trusts, meanwhile, are likely to be offered CSE-Servelec’s Rio system through BT. It is understood that strategic health authorities will play a lead role in choice arrangements.

In a statement to EHI NHS Connecting for Health confirmed that after 10 months of negotiations a deal had been done: "Connecting for Health can confirm that an extension to BT's contract has been agreed which will enable them to take over the live Cerner Millennium sites in the South.”

EHI has learned that the long anticipated agreement – officially termed a ‘contract change negotiation’ - was finally signed late on 31 March, the very end of BT’s financial quarter and the NHS financial year.

As well as covering support of existing sites the deal is understood to provide a development path based on NHS organisations in the south moving to the more advanced later version of Millennium developed for London.

As exclusively first reported by EHI, Fujitsu had its £1.1 billion LSP deal for the south terminated last May. Since then it has continued to provide interim support for sites. The company is also, however, reported to be seeking compensation running into hundreds of millions of pounds for the termination of its contract.

The completion of the deal for the south indicates that one or both of the two other stalled, inter-dependant contract renegotiations, with BT in London and CSC in the north of England, may finally be near resolution. Signing an extension of BT’s LSP contract to cover the south would make little sense unless a new deal was also to be concluded for London.

The value of the contract extension awarded to BT is unknown but thought to be high. Negotiations have been ongoing for almost a year with previous bids submitted by BT rejected by NHS Connecting for Health. The DH IT agency was said to have previously baulked at the eye-watering price sought by BT to support the eight southern Cerner sites.