‘Free’ NPfIT systems could cost Trusts up to £500,000

‘Free’ IT systems available under the National Programme for IT could in reality cost primary care trusts (PCTs) up to half a million pounds in project management charges - just for an interim solution - say healthcare informatics professionals on the ground.

PCTs in London have been ‘offered’ an ‘interim’ system as a replacement for their existing legacy system that is used to support community and therapy services. While this temporary system will be made available at no capital cost, compulsory project management fees could cost as much as £500,000.

Moreover, by the time it is deployed, the system could have a life expectancy of as little as two years before it is due to be replaced with a ‘final’ spine compliant solution from the PCT’s local service provider (LSP).

Head of Information Services at one PCT confirmed: “Our LSP has offered us a hosted ‘interim solution’. We are being told that a spine compliant system with appropriate EPR [electronic patient record] functionality is not expected to be made available before 2009 or 2010.”

Meanwhile, services are missing out on proven EPR systems for the therapies, such as Ethitec’s award winning Tiara9 system which, with typical deployment costs of less than  £70k per PCT (including all licences and project management), can be delivered at a fraction of the local service provider’s project management fees.

The flagship implementation of Tiara9 across five therapy services and six PCTs in Leicestershire is seeing over 400 clinical users of the Ethitec system, which is processing an average of 700 appointments a day. The project has resulted in slashed waiting times and increased patient choice for the county’s residents.

However, the outlook for other PCTs is not so rosy. Ethitec is concerned that LSPs are failing to co-operate with the developers of NPfIT sponsored suppliers - despite a directive from the National Programme to do so.

Having been successfully sponsored by the Eastern Region Implementation Director for inclusion in the NPfIT National Care Records Service (“Spine”) compliance testing programme in March 2004, Ethitec was one of 80 SME healthcare providers recognised as delivering strategically important NHS systems out of over 8000 existing NHS IT systems identified by NPfIT.

“At the time, we were delighted.  We are quite realistic about the need to engage with the national programme and work through it,” says Ethitec commercial director, Simon Taylor.  “However, since then the compliance programme has been ‘shelved’ - apparently due to a lack of testing resources, and the successful candidates are being redirected to the local service providers to interface with the spine.”

The LSPs, however, do not seem ready to engage in dialogue, leaving SMEs concerned that rather than encouraging the adoption of best of breed IT solutions, the impact of the national programme has been a prolonged planning blight. 

“Tiara9 is a proven ‘out of the box’ award-winning system that can be quickly deployed in any NHS trust. The reality is that even if the LSPs do eventually develop systems to support additional services, these systems will not be ‘core’ and therefore need not be delivered ‘free of charge’ to the trusts. 

“Any trusts who are holding off from the procurement of systems to support their therapists or other specialist functions in the belief that they will be provided free by their LSP are likely to be in for a very long wait and an unpleasant financial surprise.”

In the meantime, trusts like those in Leicestershire, who have invested in systems that deliver real patient benefits today, are reaping the benefits.

For further information please contact:-

Maha Bishay   t: 07739 686730/ 0845 345 5606        e: maha.bishay@b2bnative.com 

  (22/3/06)