Final Long-List for National Programme Reached

The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS has reached the latest milestone in the procurement process for Local Service Providers (LSPs) and National Application Service Providers (NASPs) to deliver 21st Cenury IT to the NHS with selection of a slightly shorter long-list of candidates.

The new list of firms, 22 prospective LSPs and seven NASPs, cuts down the list of 31 firms and consortia announced in April. The April ‘long-list’ contained 27 candidates for consideration for the role of LSP and 20 for the role of NASP. Some double counting is created by the fact that some firms and consortia qualify in more than one category.

In a statement the NPfIT said: “The National Programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) has now notified the successful and unsuccessful candidates who have progressed from the pre-qualification stage of the procurement process. These companies now comprise the formal ‘long list”.

For unspecified commercial reasons the National Programme has not yet published the latest list of prospective suppliers. Firms were notified whether they were on the list at the end of last week. E-Health Insider is currently compiling a non-official version of the list which we aim to publish by the end of the week.

Each of the firms on the new list is being asked to sign a confidentiality agreement before they are provided by the National Programme with a password protected copy of the critical Output Based Specification (OBS) document for phase one Integrated Care Records Services (ICRS).

The NPfIT stated: “Successful candidates will also have now received the initial Output Based Specification for phase 1 of the Integrated Care Record Service (ICRS). This is a commercial document that defines the detailed requirements that any company or consortia delivering work to support NPfIT and ICRS will need to meet.”

E-Health Insider understands that the OBS document is extremely detailed, running to over 600 pages. Firms now have five to six weeks to set out precisely how they would deliver the requirements set out in the OBS, and detail how they would manage implementation and provide an initial indication of prices.

E-Health Insider will bring you reaction and comment on the OBS document as soon as possible.

If you are able to provide assistance with the new shortened long-list or would like to comment on the ICRS OBS document please email jon@e-health-media.com.