TPP SystmOne likely choice for prisons

TPP’s SystmOne Prison looks likely to be chosen as the national clinical IT system for England’s prisons.

The Department of Health has commissioned NHS Connecting for Health to deliver a national clinical IT system for every prison in England and TPP’s SystmOne Prison has been selected as the preferred option.

The system is already being rolled out across the North, Midlands and East of England (NME) cluster, where around 50 prisons use SystmOne Prison.

CfH now hopes to extend availability to prisons in the South and London clusters via a contract with the CSC Alliance, the local service provider for the NME. Eight prisons in the South have independently procured SystmOne Prison.

A CfH spokesperson told EHI Primary Care: “We can confirm that we are considering extending the current roll-out of TPP SystmOne to prisons in the London and the South.

“This is subject to the appropriate approvals being gained and ongoing commercial discussions. No timescales for a possible roll-out within these areas can be provided at the moment."

The DH has set up a Prison Health IT (PHIT) programme with CfH, the Offender Health team at the DH and HM Prisons Service.

Its initial aims are to ensure every prison has an N3 connection, the necessary cabling and a national primary care clinical IT system. It also aims to deliver a shared record within HM Prison Service.

Delegates at a national stakeholder event in January heard that the programme covers more than 135 prisons in England, including all contracted out and public sector prisons, and is likely to extend to Wales pending further discussions. Special hospitals and immigration removal centres are out of scope.

Eve Roodhouse, CfH’s programme manager for the PHIT, told the stakeholder meeting that the business case identified the preferred procurement option to be the extension of an existing contract with CSC Alliance to make SystmOne Prison available in London and the South.

She said the business case for extension was at final approval stage with the DH and commercial negotiations with CSC Alliance were continuing. She said nine prisons in the South had already expressed an interest in being early implementers.