Call for phase two CAF demonstrators

The Department of Health is looking for a wider range of IT systems to take part in demonstrator sites for information sharing across health and social care.

The DH has called for expressions of interest and applications for phase two of the Common Assessment Framework programme, with £11m funding available.

The DH ran a consultation on the CAF proposals earlier this year and said the second phase would be informed by the outcome of that consultation.

It wants to widen the number of IT systems currently taking part as well as covering more geographical areas of England not represented in phase one of the programme.

A prospectus published last week said the second phase provided an opportunity to cover any issues that were not begin tested by phase one sites.

The DH said it would also like to see a bid from a consortium testing information sharing across local authority or NHS boundaries. The prospectus adds that such a bid “would be particularly helpful in providing information on the likely challenges of a national rollout.”

Nine suppliers are currently taking part in phase one – BT (supplying RiO), CoreLogic (Frameworki), CSC (Lorenzo R3 – which the prospectus says is planned), Epic Solutions, Graphnet Health Solutions, LiquidLogic (Protocol AIS), Maracis Solutions, Northgate (Swift; AIS) and OLM (CareFirst).

The DH says it is also currently in discussions with primary care system suppliers EMIS and TPP.

As in phase one, applications must be led by local adult social services and involve at least one NHS trust.

All phase two demonstrator sites must have started the Information Governance Statement of Compliance for Social Care (IGSoC) and have plans to complete it by July 2010, have an N3 connection in the social services department by July 2010 and have validated NHS numbers on their client/service user index by the same date.

The DH said it was looking to select four additional partnerships to address the major areas of interest, which it defined as: offender health, focusing on discharge into the community and including links with the national IT system for prisons SystmOne Prison; transition between children’s and adults’ services; acute services; out-of-hours services; and information sharing for end of life/palliative care.

Other areas of interest might be covered within those partnerships or by a separate bid for a focused piece of work, the DH said.

Expressions of interest must be made by 12 October with successful sites expected to start work in January 2010. Projects should last a maximum of two years.