Leicester moves to Accenture PACS

University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust has become the first NHS trust outside Accenture’s local service provider area to sign a contract with the company for its picture archiving and communications system.

Matt Oakley, Accenture UK and Ireland lead for medical imaging, confirmed the deal to eHealth Insider and said the company will provide the trust with a “fully managed service for PACS.”

As reported by EHI last month, Accenture signed a one-year contract extension with the Department of Health to continue to provide PACS to trusts in the North East, Eastern and East Midlands.

The company’s contract, which was originally put in place as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS, was due to end in June 2013.

A similar deal with CSC for the South, North West and West Midlands is still scheduled to terminate next year. The BT London LSP contract is due to end in June 2014.

Oakley said that 24 of the 32 trusts currently supported by Accenture have signed up to the extension. Of the remaining eight, only one trust, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has actively gone out to tender for a new system.

“We have spent the last three or four months closing out the deal with the DH, and we are very pleased that trusts are reflecting on the success of the last five years and wanting to work with a company that has experience of the market,” he added.

In its original deal, Accenture worked with Agfa HealthCare, the software supplier for PACS and the Central Data Store, and Hitachi Data Systems, which supplies storage. The Leicester deal will see that arrangement continue.

However, Accenture has confirmed it will also be working with other companies, including newcomers to the PAS/RIS sector.

The future of the national PACS/RIS contracts and the decisions that trusts are making as they come to an end is discussed in an eHealth Insider special report on digital imaging, published this week.