Fujitsu exit may hinder trusts on 18-week waits
- 2 June 2008
NHS trusts in the South of England may struggle to reach the national 18-week wait referral to treatment (RTT) target, as a result of the ending of Fujitsu’s contract to provide IT systems, including software to monitor waiting times.
The warning, made by healthcare business intelligence specialist Ardentia, comes in the week that the Department of Health (DH) said the English NHS was on track to meet the December target ensuring no patient waits more than 18 weeks for treatment.
The eight trusts live with Cerner software supplied by Fujitsu, and others who may have been expecting a system before the December deadline, who had been relying on the Cerner system to track their targets, now face uncertainty and possible difficulties, the company said.
David Beeson, marketing director at Ardentia, told E-Health Insider: “The disruption caused to trusts as a result of the termination of the Fujitsu LSP contract could hardly have come at a worse time, with the December deadline for meeting 18-week wait RTT times now looming large.
“At best, the difficulties surrounding the contract are going to lead to further delays in providing the necessary system upgrades. The need for Ardentia Pathway Manager software is now acute among trusts in the South.”
Earlier this week, the DH announced the NHS had met its commitment to reduce the time patients wait from referral from their GP to starting their treatment by the end of March, with 85% of patients who require admission to hospital and 90% of patients not needing admission started treatment within 18 weeks of referral from their GP.
The three strategic health authorities in the South of England have all met these targets comfortably, but Beeson says this is being achieved using manual methods, employed while trusts waited for the promised 18-week reporting functionality in the Cerner Millennium system.
“Many trusts are already doing well and met the latest targets, but I think a lot of trusts are doing labour-intensive methods of gathering and submitting the data.”
Sites in SPfIT such as Worthing, have been waiting for 18 week tracking functionality as part of their Cerner system, but have yet to receive their upgrade to provide this.
In a letter to trust chief executives in the region, Connecting for Health’s chief operating officer, Gordon Hextall, said work will continue with Fujitsu to ensure they receive this upgrade. A spokesperson added: “WASH is receiving planned upgrades and maintenance fixes in line with agreed plans.”
Beeson says that Worthing have been in contact with Ardentia, and are planning to install the firm’s Pathway Manager as an interim system.
Ardentia provides RTT monitoring to 20 trusts in England, helping them to meet the national targets ahead of the December deadline. The Pathway Manager tool is said provide staff with a prospective view of waiting times rather than a retrospective view, enabling them to resolve any issues well within the 18-week time frame.
The Referral to Treatment module of Pathway Manager, which has been developed with support from Microsoft, simplifies and streamlines the management of patient pathways, identifying key event stages and calculating waiting times.
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