OJEU notice signals start of GP systems procurement

Procurement for GP Systems of Choice will begin this week and be complete in three months’ time, finally delivering the right to IT system choice enshrined in the 2003 GMS contract, NHS Connecting for Health has announced.

CfH has received approval from the Treasury to proceed with the procurement and a notice has today been published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

CfH says that eight existing GP computer suppliers – EMIS, INPS, iSoft, TPP, Ascribe, Healthy Software, Microtest and Seetec – have all indicated that they will take part in the procurement process and all are expected to agree a contract to supply IT systems to GP practices.

CfH’s GPSoC programme director Kemi Adenoubi said the procurement process should be complete by mid-May.

She told EHI Primary Care: “We are expecting them all to respond and as long as they fulfil the criteria in the framework which is between the suppliers and the Department of Health we would hope to enter into agreements with all of them as well as any newcomers.”

The framework agreement will cover the functionality, security and reliability of GP systems with existing suppliers encouraged to upgrade their systems in line with GPSoC’s “maturity model.”

Adenoubi said the framework would also require suppliers to meet more stringent performance management requirements with service levels covering aspects such as helpdesk support and the availability of the service for hosted systems.

She added: “Sometimes there are some suppliers who don’t act as quickly as they should.”

Dr Braunold added: “Practices will experience a lot of benefit. It’s not just about a better service but a better framework. Now there will be 21st century standards about what you can and can’t do but choice about which way you want to take your business.”

Once the framework is in place PCTs will be expected to confirm with all their practices whether they wish to stay with their existing systems or move and trusts will then be able to enter into “call off” contracts with suppliers, based on the central agreements. Practices that wish to move to an LSP funded system in their area will do so under the LSP framework but CfH expects all other practices and PCTs to migrate to the new “call off” contracts over the next year.

CfH joint GP clinical lead Dr Gillian Braunold, who has played a key role in the development of GPSoC, said: “The expectation is that the vast majority of practices will want to stay where they are.”

The vast majority of the costs of the contracts will be paid for centrally but practices and PCTs will have to fund additional services such as touchscreen appointment systems and third party add-ons like anti-coagulation blood monitoring software.

Adenoubi said: “This will release PCTs of most of the financial burden and solve the problem that suppliers felt they were sometimes the victims of the PCTs’ problems with funding.

Although the call-off contracts will be held between PCTs and suppliers, the GPSoC team is also now working with stakeholders to develop an agreement to be used between PCTs and practices. Adenoubi said GPs would remain the data controllers.

At the same time as the OJEU procurement of IT systems for general practice, CfH says it is also seeking to procure data migration services from two or three suppliers.

Adenoubi said the decision to go for procurement on data migration was to get some consolidated suppliers who would be required to meet CfH standards on data migration and would be able to develop expertise in doing so.

Dr Braunold added: “Data migration will always be painful but we hope to provide practices with the right tools to do it safely and be less frightened to do it. What we want to do is standardise the support that practices receive.”

Dr Braunold said stakeholder support for GP Systems of Choice had been very strong with buy-in from the Joint GP IT Committee of the BMA and RCGP, the British Computer Society, PCTs, SHAs and suppliers.

Dr Braunold paid tribute to the work of Kemi Adenoubi in developing the GPsoC model.

She said: “I am delighted we have reached this stage but it would not have happened without some immense intelligent lateral thinking and hard work by Kemi. A year ago we were looking at intra-trading arrangements and although the top headlines were there but there we didn’t have anything underneath.”

The appearance of the procurement notice has been welcomed by GPs and suppliers.

Dr Paul Cundy, co-chair of the joint GP IT committee said: “This is great news for GPs and great news for the programme. I am reassured that this is finally going to happen.”

Sean Riddell, managing director of leading GP computer supplier EMIS, said it was “cracking news” for all practices.

He added: “It removes PCTs from what was a rock and a hard place. We have always said you need ruthless standardisation of data but not of systems. Choice drives forward competition which drives forward innovation.”

Although the Treasury has given the GPSoC team approval to proceed with procurement it has yet to approve the business case but CfH is confident this will now follow.

Dr Manpreet Pujara, a GP in Rochester, Kent, and chairman of the EMIS National User Group which has campaigned for IT system choice for GPs, welcomed the move. He added: “I welcome the fact that GPSoC has been agreed and I look forward to seeing that it is implemented efficiently. I just hope that it does deliver genuine choice for practices.”

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