GE wins £110m PACS contract for South of England

The agreement will see GE healthcare implement PACS technology that will enable the conversion of hospitals and clinics to a new digitised system for storing, retrieving and displaying patient’s medical images.

GE Healthcare will supply Fujitsu, the local service provider (LSP) for the Southern region of the NPfIT, with PACS technology for digitised patient medical images, such as X-rays and other medical scans. 

Under a £110 million deal that will run until June 2013 GE Healthcare should install PACS in the 72 hospitals run by 42 NHS hospital trusts across the South of England.  Implementation work will begin in early 2005 and is scheduled to be completed by March 2007.

The deal marks the single biggest PACS deal ever signed in the UK, and the largest signed by GE globally. 

Howard Jones, GE Healthcare’s LSP Business Development Manager told E-Health Insider that the value of the deal was “not altogether clear, even for us, as it’s down to the number of sites that will take PACS".

Jones confirmed that PACS will be delivered NHS Trust by NHS Trust.  Asked about the challenge of delivering on the scale required by March 2007 he said: “It’s going to be busy".

GE Healthcare will supply Fujitsu, the local service provider (LSP) for the Southern region of the NPfIT, with PACS technology for digitised patient medical images, such as X-rays and other medical scans. 

In May the government announced that the entire NHS in England will install PACS systems by June 2007 to allow medical images of patients to be transmitted on demand and to remote sites for expert scrutiny and diagnosis.

At the time of the announcement GE was said to have “been awarded the right" to be the PACS supplier for three of the five regions the NPfIT has divided England into.  As subsequently reported by E-Health Insider, however, by August Agfa appeared to have supplanted GE as the preferred PACS in the North East and Eastern regions – the two regions where Accenture is LSP.

Only this week Martyn Forrest, NPfIT Regional Implementation Director for the North East, told EHI that while negotiations had not yet been concluded it was anticipated that the PACS contract for the North East would probably be awarded to Agfa.    

GE’s Jones declined to be drawn on whether he anticipated GE would wind up signing deals to supply PACS to other English NHS regions, stating “I can’t comment on that", but did indicate that negotiations were continuing with other LSPs.  

Questioned about whether Radiology Information Systems (RIS) were included as part of the deal with Fujitsu Jones said.  “RIS was a system we did not take up with Fujitsu." EHI understands that Fujitsu are negotiating with two suppliers, one being Cerner, for the award of a separate RIS contract

Eventually PACS, together with other components of the NPfIT, such as data spine, NHS Care Records Service and fast broadband networks, will enable the electronic storage, display and retrieval of a patient’s records, including medical images, from anywhere in the country.

Sir William Cassell, Chief Executive of UK-based GE Healthcare said: “We are delighted to support the UK government in delivering a new digitised system that will enable better patient care and increased efficiency in the NHS."

Stuart Denlegh-Maxwell of Fujitsu said: “We have partnered with GE healthcare due to their leadership in the field, their proven ability to work with us to deploy PACS in the South of England within challenging timescales. By the end of March 2007, all acute trusts in the South of England will be enjoying the benefits of this technology."

He added that detailed preparation work with trusts was now underway, with early sites due to go live in the New Year.

GE has installed more than 400 PACS systems worldwide, including approximately 30 in the UK.  Prior to the commencement of the NPfIT the company had installed about five PACS systems in the South of England