Two more London trusts stick with Cerner

Two London Cerner trusts have confirmed they plan to stick with their Millennium electronic patient record systems beyond the end of their national contracts in 2015.

Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust and St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust have selected Cerner as preferred supplier for their EPR.

Both are members of a consortium of six London trusts (formerly nine) that went out to tender for a patient administration system/EPR, a clinical portal and hosting services in February 2012.

All received Cerner Millennium delivered by BT under the National Programme for IT and must transition to a new supplier before the contract expires in October 2015. The London framework lists Cerner, Epic and InterSystems as potential EPR suppliers.

Royal Free director of IM&T Will Smart told EHI the trust has run its mini-competition and selected Cerner to continue to supply Millennium.

It is also working with the Health and Social Care Information Centre to be the first trust to exit its NPfIT contract early. It will “effectively be a pilot” when it does so this June, he said.

A spokesperson for St George’s said: “Cerner has been selected by the trust as the preferred supplier of acute clinical information system, and Servelec (providers of RiO) as the preferred supplier of community clinical information systems”.

St.George’s has also been working with the HSCIC on exit planning from the current contract arrangements and has indicative dates for transfer to new service arrangements, the spokesperson added.

Barts Health NHS Trust was the first of the London collaborative to confirm it will stick with Cerner when it made an announcement in June last year. At that time, it also expected to the first to exit its NPfIT contract with the HSCIC.

However, Barts’ chief information officer Luke Readman told EHI the trust is delivering some more functionality and coverage under its NPfIT contract, particularly at its Whipps Cross site, and “therefore its sensible for us to do it (exit) at a slightly later stage, but still within the exit window”.

“I’m very grateful to the HSCIC and others for the support in being able to reach this point where we can sensibly plan the future,” he said.

The three remaining trusts in the collaborative are yet to decide or confirm their preferred EPR suppliers.

EHI reported in January that Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust had begun the process for exiting its national contract with the HSCIC.

When asked about its future plans, a trust spokesperson said it cannot announce the winner of the contract as it has not been through the appropriate governance process of reporting to the trust board of directors.

A spokesperson for Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust said: “a re-procurement process for suppliers of EPR software and data services to the trust is in progress”.

Croydon Health Services NHS Trust went live with Millennium in October last year. A spokesperson said no decision has been made about exiting its current contract or choosing a new supplier, adding that, “it is likely that this will be reviewed in the summer”.

The London framework, worth between £250m – £400m, has three lots. The successful suppliers for the portal lot are CGI (formerly Logica), Harris and Orion.

For hosting, the contracts have gone to Capita Health Decisions, Cerner and HP.