Industry experts call for acute systems of choice

A range of politicians, industry analysts and experts have urged NHS Connecting for Health to use Fujitsu’s exit from the National Programme for IT as an opportunity to introduce acute systems of choice, based on the ASCC catalogue. 

Fujitsu on Wednesday had its £896m contract as local service provider in the South terminated, after a fruitless ten month contract re-set process.

Shadow health minister, Stephen O’Brien, said the departure of a second local service provider to NPfIT demonstrated “the government’s attempts to ram through a top-down, centralised, one size fits all NHS supercomputer system have come crashing down. This is £12.7 billion of taxpayers’ money now at risk.”

In a press statement, Connecting for Health, sought to stress continuity and business as usual: "Work has started immediately on planning the necessary arrangements [for change].”

Both CSC and BT told EHI they would if asked consider taking over the Fujitsu LSP deal

Richard Bacon MP, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, added: “It’s time the Department of Health stopped forcing NHS trusts to wait for triple-decker buses that haven’t left the drawing board.

The MP called for buying decisions to be put back into the hands of NHS trusts. “The original approach of handing over monopolies to a handful of local service providers was never going to work and has been shown not to work”.

A series of industry analysts and experts recommended a return to local trust choice of systems, potentially through use of CfH’s recently completed Additional Supply Capability and Capacity (ASCC) framework catalogue, rather than handing the contract to an existing LSP.

Jonathan Edwards an analyst with Gartner, told EHI: “The immediate priority for CfH is to clarify the arrangements for the transition of services and to find a new way of stimulating adoption. Perhaps now is the time to look at restoring acute systems of choice.”

Tola Sargeant, an analyst at Ovum, cautioned against a straight handover of the Fujitsu LSP contract: “Of the two remaining LSPs, BT, the LSP for London which is also deploying Cerner’s software, would be the obvious candidate. However, BT has its hands rather full enough already with the London deployment and we’d urge NHS CFH to think twice before handing it the South as well.”

Sargeant urged CfH to explore the ASCC route: “Instead, NHS CFH may choose to use its new Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework agreement for the procurement. The question is; do any of them ([lot 2 suppliers] really want the job?”

Another anonymous industry expert said CfH had three options: “The task in hand was not as clear cut as Fujitsu first thought. This begs the question of what happens next. Does CfH stick with forced choice of either Cerner or iSoft, or do they open up the ASCC lot 2 and provide trusts with choice? And what happens to all those members of staff employed just to work with Fujitsu and Cerner?”

Bacon also called for use of the framework contract: “NHS Connecting for Health had the sense to sign a contingency framework contract so that other suppliers could be let into the market. My hope now is that the Department of Health will make use of that contract to let hospital trusts buy from a range of suppliers.”

Sargeant concluded: “For the National Programme as a whole, this is yet more unwelcome news. It will inevitably put another major dent in public confidence in the Programme and it is hard to see how it will not lead to further delays. For Fujitsu – however you spin things – it is also a severe blow.”