Kettering latest System C / McKesson win

Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has agreed a deal with System C, a McKesson company, to implement its patient administration system and electronic patient record, eHealth Insider has learned.

EHI understands that the trust has chosen to purchase the Medway system using the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework.

The deal is significant because Kettering was due to become the next acute trust early adopter of Lorenzo, the electronic patient record system that CSC has been trying to develop and deploy to trusts in the North, Midlands and East.

However, the trust appears to have decided that it cannot continue to wait. Kettering invested in an Integrated Clinical Information System – ICIS – from IBA Health back in 2001.

At the time, it was hopeful of making a “breakthrough” with its IT and give staff access to much of what became known as Clinical 5 functionality, via a web browser.

However, IT strategies dating back five years suggest the trust has been facing a number of problems with its ageing systems, and with finding space for its remaining paper records.

In the trust’s IM&T strategy for 2007-12, ICIS system is described as providing “excellent access to PAS information but, other systems are departmentally based and integration for holistic management is labour intensive at best and unachievable at worst.”

In November 2009, when NHS Bury hit the deadline set by then-director general of informatics Christine Connelly for CSC to get the latest version of Lorenzo live ‘in any setting’, Kettering was still hoping to follow in May 2010.

It has had subsequent go-live dates for as late as Easter this year. However, no trusts have gone live with the system since Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust pulled out of the early adopter programme in April last year.

Negotiations between the Department of Health and CSC about a new local service provider deal are still ongoing, with the latest ‘standstill’ agreement between the two parties due to run out on 1 June.

McKesson purchased System C in May 2011 and has since secured some important business. As reported by EHI, University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust went live Medway at the end of last month.

And Gateshead Health NHS Foundation Trust is due to go live with the system this summer. Neither Kettering nor the company have chosen to comment on the latest win.