Connelly sets a November deadline for suppliers

Tags: BT Cerner Connelly CSC DH Informatics iSoft South

28 Apr 2009

Christine Connelly has given the main suppliers to the National Programme for IT in the NHS seven months to demonstrate "significant progress" in delivering information systems to the acute sector.

In a keynote speech to the Healthcare Computing conference in Harrogate, the newly styled director general for informatics said “we will look at alternative approaches” if the November deadline is not met.

Her message was underlined by a DH statement, which said: "We will be working closely with the NHS and our current suppliers to improve the pace of delivery.

"If we don't see significant progress by the end of November 2009, then we will move to a new plan for delivering informatics in healthcare."

The target Connelly outlined would mean BT getting Cerner Millennium running in another London actue trust - probably Kingston - by the end of November.

It would also mean CSC getting the latest version of iSoft's Lorenzo fully implemented in a care setting - not necessarily an acute trust - by November and "runnng smoothly" in an acute trust by March.

Connelly said she did not “want to talk very much” about what a new approach might involve but “at this point we are not ruling anything out.”

In the South of England, where Fujitsu exited the national programme nearly a year ago, she said the IT market was to be opened up "with a procurement process for hospitals that are not managed by BT."

As previously reported by E-Health Insider, this will use the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity framework, which was set up in 2007 to deliver extra resources to the national programme.

Despite the deadline put on delivery, the DH said that Connelly's review of the national programme had confirmed that its "core aims around providing accessible and timely information to support patient care should be retained."

It also made clear that it wanted to retain the current procurement model, "which has ensured protection for the taxpayer by only paying suppliers on successful delivery of working systems."

The DH flagged progress in somea reas of the programme, while admitting that "process in implementing electronic information systems in the acute sector has proved more challenging."

It said it was vital to get "greater pace" into these implementations; but it also wanted to "open up the healthcare IT market to new suppliers and new technological developments." To encourage innovation, it announced a new 'app store' style toolkit that will be in place by March next year.

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E-Health Insider staff

Reader's Comments

Mission accomplished?

28 Apr 09 12:04

We are talking enterprise software with development life cycles of years, deployments of which take between 6 and 18 months.

Is the November situation not already known with near certainty?

Meanwhile >>and working smoothly across it by next March<< seems to accept yet another Royal Free style fiasco as the price of meeting a political deadline. With adequate tailoring, testing and training go-lives are minimally disruptive to patient care and activity reporting alike.

No, the key thing this communicates to me is that tough decisions on NPfIT are now safely placed the other side of the General Election.

Job's a good 'un.

New broom don't work

28 Apr 09 20:04

The tired trumpetting by NPfIT of the scarce benefits shines through. (And PACS still does not deliver the vision of images taken elsewhere being seamlessly available - which was why we went this expensive route). And is this 7 months further vassilation on top of the 6 months that the Public Accounts Committee already had as an ultimatum.

In my view the Additional Supplies framework was a flawed and partial process, the whole CfH procurement methodology is horribly flawed, and has locked the NHS up in a complex, fruitless and elongated process, when we could have been delivering real benefits to patients, with incremental learning at far more modest costs.

And indeed, starved of investment, ridiculed as legacy, and starved of time whilst we also responded to the NPfIT monster, the old systems have continued to run the NHS, and to be quietly extended to deliver whilst the NPfIT process has not.

Afraid it appears another whitewash, and wholly unlikely to deliver any sensible progress.

Oxymoron?

29 Apr 09 11:04

What about the progress that CSC has been making in the South with TPP SystmOne? Is Connelly's "significant progress by November" vision (for Southern PCTs) going to be scuppered by her very own intent to go via ASCC for everything?

I hear that CSC are now offering Social Care, Bed Management and Mental Health as part of their TPP / Primary Care solution-set. Anyone seen it?

South PCTs stuffed

29 Apr 09 13:04

Well done Christine Connolly. After the exit of Fujitsu, and under the encouragement of our SHA CIO’s (who arranged demonstrations with BT and CSC) we have been actively investigating the strategic options available under NPfIT.

On this basis we have engaged with CSC to implement TPP S1 in our PCT – as have neighbouring PCTs. Demonstrations have taken place, PIDs and business cases have been produced, project boards set up etc etc. What is more – our staff are genuinely excited at the prospect having seen TPP S1 and knowing how successful CSC have been in the North.

So from choosing and wanting a product available via an LSP under NPfIT we will now have to abandon our project and go back to square one. Instead of going live in the next few weeks we will have to disband the project team and procure a solution through ASCC. Whereas all PCTs in the other clusters will have their software ‘free‘ under NPfIT – we will have to pay.

What is more - how about a level playing field with BT for CSC. Both LSPs have put effort in after the Fujitsu exit - but BT have been awarded further work in all Southern MH Trusts just because it was the only way to get the existing four Cerner deployments supported.

Baby with bathwater comes to mind - but what do you expect from CfH. After 5 years and a massive waste or money and resource trying to force us to take a Cerner system that was not fit for purpose, now that we actually want an NPfIT solution - it's taken away from us.

This is absolutely farcical and yet another massive letdown for the NHS at the sharp end.

Can we do it.... yes we can

gordon.casey@bsmhft.nhs.uk

29 Apr 09 15:04

In most respects it doesnt really matter if they are achievable or not, its is the treasury that set the budgets. Besides an instant saving of about 12bn can be made by...(In no more than ten words)..................... answers on a postcard ...or e-health insider.... please.

CfH to fund SPfIT ASCC Procurments?

30 Apr 09 11:04

Computer Weekly have reported that "a CfH spokesperson" has confirmed that Trusts in the South will be given central funding to make ASCC procurements:

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/04/28/235819/nhs-trusts-to-have-it-choice-again.htm

Can e-Health Insider (or anyone else) confirm this?

funding which fraction ?

30 Apr 09 21:04

There is always the rub. The purchase price if funded by CfH is only one aspect, they have always appeared to exclude difficult aspects like data takeon and interfacing, and the much higher implementation and project costs of doing things the LSP way.

The myth that these mega contracts have saved the NHS money is partly because the local costs of filling the gaps that these rushed central contracts missed out often appears to cost more than the entire price of doing things the old way.

That is if there is a product ready to use before the strategy all changes again.

have you heard the one about....?

01 May 09 10:05

guy goes to the doctor and the doctor says "i can only give you six months to live"

guy says "thats terrible doctor, and on top of that i can't afford to pay your bill"

"that's ok i'll give you another 6 months"

ASCC a badly flawed process can only deliver more failure

01 May 09 17:05

ASCC was a badly flawed process designed only to provide a list of suppliers thought big enough to put forward solutions to the NHS, without any evaluation whatsoever of the functionality these solutions offered…One supplier at debrief was told “We don’t care whether you have the best product …that is not what the NHS wants to buy; its all about service and your companies ability to deliver a service”

The move now to procure via ASCC is likely to exclude many of the best, most robust and successfully working NHS solutions, just as they did with NPfIT.

We all await the nightmare to be over!

ASCC - imperfect

02 May 09 07:05

Sorry poster 9, but your comment "without any evaluation whatsoever of the functionality these solutions offered" may be angry, but is factually incorrect.

An evaluation program was undertaken - and those evaluations actually included NHS clinicians.

Your other quote "We don’t care whether you have the best product" is also lacking context and is misleading.

ASCC wasn't a beauty parade with only one winner - "the best product" - as the previous NPfIT process for LSPs had been.

Rather ASCC was actually new and different in the way it was able to approve several suppliers offering a range of products within the same market place.

So yes, ASCC didn't "care" if the manufacturer thought it had a "best product" - what manufacturer doesn't - and for implementation this is often a subjective view and also depends what you already have in place, change management, implementation schedules, functionality, interfacing, hardware etc.

Further, some products were unavailable for the ASCC process, so whether a product was "the best" would depend on what came to the table.

New products - such as Microsoft's Amalga platform - may be just what David Cameron has in mind for the future!

Flawed Imperfection

04 May 09 23:05

The real problem pre-NPfIT was getting hold of money, especially capital. Availability of capital for IT projects was very difficult following the old Regional mega-computer failures, and almost every business case I steered through had to jump different hoops to the previous ones.

The procurement process was OK. Not least because it gave a chance for our clinicians to look the supplier in the eye, and ask awkward questions about features they saw, and satisfy themselves that they could work with it. It gave us in IT a chance to unmask the vapourware and ensure the integrity and interoperability, and it gave the finance team the chance to cut the deal based on their current financial pressures and outlook.

So NPfIT was not welcome, with a 'free' ticket price, but many add-ons and pieces they forgot or found too complex to price at much high costs than we were used to, no visibility of the contract, and little opportunity to negotiate.

The ASCC catalogue, which still means a procurement exercise, but now from an artificially shortend list, based on an evaluation some time ago, by unnamed others, to unpublished criteria, will not restore faith that we are able to select the best there currently is.

And ongoing lack of clarity about how much the centre will fund, or why this funding should only available for ASCC offerings, and not self-selected Clinical 5 products returns us right back where we started.

Simplify and clarify the process, or stop pretending that the centre is aiding or can indeed help. Please

Correction and clarification

lyn@e-health-media.com

29 Oct 09 13:10

The first version of this story appeared before Christine Connelly spoke in Harrogate and was based on a story that ran in the FT.

The FT - which did not have a reporter at the conference itself - reported that Connelly was going to give both CSC and BT a November deadline to get their strategic EPR systems working in another acute trust.

On the day, Connelly did not say this. Instead, she said BT was to get Cerner Millennium into another acute by November, and that CSC was to get iSoft Lorenzo into "a care setting" by November and "working smoothly" at an acute by March.

The wording of the story has been ammended (more than once) to reflect what our own reporter heard and NHS Connecting for Health has said consistently since Connelly made her announcement.

Lyn Whitfield, managing editor, E-Health Insider.