Procurements for South complete by April

Tags: Child health Connelly DH NPfIT

25 Nov 2009

The Department of Health’s chief information officer, Christine Connelly, has said she wants the formal procurement process for systems in the South to begin in January and to be complete by the beginning of April 2010.

According to multiple sources, Connelly announced the timescales in a speech at the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity (ASCC) market awareness event held by the DH in Westminster yesterday.

She said the formal process for procurement in the South will go-ahead in early January and, if possible, finish by the end of the fiscal year with deployments to follow over the coming months.

In a ten minute speech, which was followed by an extensive Q&A session, Connelly said that the ASCC event was important because delegates were predominately those with a genuine interest in systems with a view to procure.

Earlier this month, Connelly sent out a letter inviting suppliers on the ASCC framework, which was compiled in May 2008, to attend the event.

She said it was “essential to inform demand and improve market awareness of the clinical applications that are available in the communities, child health and acute sectors in advance of a series of procurements.”

Following the awareness day, Connelly said the plan is to run joint or collaborative procurements, involving groups of trusts seeking the same product or solution.

According to a spokesman from NHS Connecting for Health, who spoke to E-Health Insider outside the event from which the press was excluded, around 180 NHS IT staff and 40 suppliers turned up.

The spokesman said there had been an “alarm signal” that highlighted the need to run the awareness day because “not everybody knows everything about what is available to them.”

The majority of the suppliers outside the event were generally positive about the interest they were receiving from “people who know what that are looking for.”

Sean Riddell, managing director of EMIS, told EHI: “The event is about awareness for the whole market around what is happening, but it’s also about co-operation with competitors because that’s the direction where it is all heading.

“All of these events take a step forward by allowing the service to see products that are out there. It’s not just about the product, though, it’s about the roadmap. There's always a gap between what a procurement may describe in an OBS [output based specification] and what clinicians on the ground want.”

However, several suppliers raised concerns about the speed with which the event was put together and the lack of clinicians attending.

A well known supplier of electronic patient record systems said: “the event is just box ticking from a CfH point of view, although the suppliers are very serious.”

Richard Moxon, sales director for Oasis Medical Solutions, said: “There’s a lot of trust based staff so far. Clinicians haven’t been heavily involved, which is interesting as the whole process is meant to be clinically led.”

However, he added: “We were in two minds about what to expect and whether it would be worth the effort, but in actual fact it has been.”

Andrew Spence, director of healthcare strategy for CSC, told EHI: “If I’m honest I would say we were sceptical about the event at first, but there has been consistent interest throughout the day.

"Most suppliers are taking it seriously and the NHS is genuinely making an effort to see what’s available. How important the event has been remains to be seen, and what happens next is critical.”

The CfH spokesman said there would be structured feedback from both the delegate and the supplier side to help decide the way forward.

The feedback with be collated from questionnaires given out at the event. These address issues such as whether it helped delegates with expressions of interest in a product and whether there are gaps in the market that need to be filled.

Link: NHS Connecting for Health

Sarah Bruce

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Reader's Comments

Some questions...

25 Nov 09 10:11

Were any of these questions answered yesterday?

How much money is left from the original £1.1m allocated to the South?

Fujitsu got at least £133m, BT got £546m to look after the live 8 ( actually 7), then BT took another £73m to take on 4 more acutes (although the fourth is curiously absent). That adds up to £752m for 10 Trusts.

How will the remanining money be divided? Per SHA, per trust? First come first served?

Perhaps 25 more acutes, and community, and, and ..... need servicing with the remaining £350m. Assuming of course somebody else hasn't spent it on legal fee's etc

Will CfH be asking the government for more money before the election if they need it?

Will the remaining trusts have to provide thier own funding?

If I were a trust embarking on this procurement route I think I 'd like to know the answers to these and no doubt more of the detailed questions that will come up.

Pie in the sky

25 Nov 09 10:11

Talk about pie in the sky!!!!!

So in a few months they are going out to tender so Trusts can choose a very complicated IT system that will start deployment shortly afterwards, this is the ludicrous thing I have heard from the NHS - ever; even more than the existing arrangements.

Firstly have the Trust already defined what they want from a system – most probably not?

Second do they need a new system?

Third do they have the budget?

Fourth do existing arrangements with suppliers tie the Trusts into existing arrangements?

Oh I could go on for ever but you get the idea.

A great idea - let's not mess it up

26 Nov 09 09:11

I think this is a fine initiative for so many reasons. Now let’s be sure we don’t muck it up again. Trusts need to order what they need. Suppliers should be paid a decent but not outrageous amount for delivering stuff that works and that people want.

Let’s have true transparency on deployments so that suppliers know that if they muck it up, they won’t be doing any more sites. Let’s make sure that the Trusts take their responsibilities seriously and deliver their side of the project. Whatever you may say about the products the national programme selected, we have all learned masses about how to deploy systems. Let’s not lose all that in a mad rush to procure new systems.

Complete by April???(ROFL)

26 Nov 09 19:11

It was so disappointing to see Sarah Bruce (EHI’s Reporter) denied entrance to the Market Awareness Day, and having to resort to door-stepping delegates and suppliers. Why? What did we have to hide? There was nothing “commercial in confidence” going on, and while acknowledging that it was a “by invitation only” event, I think most of us assumed that this was to ensure that there was adequate catering rather than to shun publicity and democracy.

A shame, because for the first time, we were able to see what suppliers really can offer in the way of EPR applications outside the “TINA” (There Is No Alternative) NPfIT/CfH constraints. And in this respect, I include even Cerner who were demonstrating availability under ASCC which far exceeds NPfIT/CfH R0, R1, and even any future NPfIT “R”, and which they assured us they could and would provide under ASCC.

I still couldn’t understand what Ms Connelly was meaning in her short “address” in relation to the availability of CfH funding for ASCC. Yes (see EHI articles passim) I think we all now understand (although it’s tough getting the message through to some FDs who seem to think that EPR will be “free for ever”) that any CfH funding, LSP, ASCC, or otherwise will only be for “deployment”. And poster 1 above sums up neatly (aside from the fact that it should say “£1.1 billion”, not million) what might be the available funding left in the South’s pot for “deployment”.

But for me, the laugh of the day was Ms Connelly telling us that she wanted a formal ASCC procurement process (and I’m guessing that she means by this one or more “Further Competition Procedure(s)”, which is what the ASCC Framework Contracts require) to begin in January, and “to be complete by the beginning of April 2010”. Surely she can’t believe that’s possible?

I can’t believe that the South – or any other “cluster” - could possibly get together a coherent and credible list of the requirements in terms of applications and timescales of each of the 28 Acutes (never mind the Community and other Trusts) to enable an overall Specification of Requirements to be produced let alone communicate those requirements and seek, receive, and evaluate proposals from Bidders by the beginning of April 20101. And where does each Trust’s Business Case process fit into this?

Let’s agree – Ms Connelly’s timetable isn’t going to happen; if it weren’t for the fact that there will be a general election in May, then this would fall into another of Ms Connelly’s “…by November 2009…” aspirations, and we’d all watch yet another deadline sail by regardless.

Now let’s see – Rotherham, Newcastle, Wirral, Blackpool, etc., etc.

Or let’s just wait.

Deadlinitis?

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

26 Nov 09 19:11

Why are major changes so often announced with such tight deadlines? Changing systems is a major project. Options have been constrained since 2002. Suddenly Trusts (and possibly all sorts of other organisations) are told - or are they? - that they can chose suppliers - and are obliged - or are they? - to make major decisions involving the tacit admission that previous plans to migrate to the LSP solution as the only one available - is no longer applicable **in four months in the swine flu season!!!**

Don't you all love the long-term view?!

PS sympathy to the suppliers - their problems may be even worse. What would you - as a supplier - do if you estimated that you could manage say 20 installations at acute trusts at the same time - and ended up with 100?