ISoft7 complete five year deal

The seven ‘out of cluster’ trusts in London and the South of England that signed a deal with iSoft and CSC ahead of the National Programme for IT in the NHS have finalised agreements to extend their contracts for five years.

As first reported by eHealth Insider in December, iSoft will receive £4.8m in licence fees and £7.8m for maintenance and support for the patient and clinical management systems as a result of the deal, which runs until April 2016.

EHI understands that CSC will receive a similar amount within the £25m deal, which covers patient administration systems for Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust; Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust; Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust; Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust; University Hospital Lewisham NHS Trust; and Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust.

The four trusts that use iSoft’s clinical management solution for order communications, results reporting and prescribing will also extend their licenses, maintenance and support for a further five years.

Colin Sweeney, director of IT at King’s College, said: “From our point of view, the clinical functionality offered under the national programme does not match what we already have from iSoft.

“The precise details of the contract need to be agreed, but this is the best result possible as its causes the least disruption. The service is certainly an improvement on what we had before and at a price that the trusts feel is affordable.”

The deal has followed many months of negotiations between the trusts and the two suppliers.

At the beginning of December, talks appeared to be breaking down when NHS Connecting for Health said it would only pay for one year of the contract, leaving trusts to foot the rest of the bill for themselves.

Shortly after, the trusts indicated they were prepared to put a formal tender notice in the Official Journal of the European Union. The suppliers then managed to negotiate a better deal.

Adrian Stevens, managing director of iSoft’s UK and Ireland business, said: “This is a hugely important development for iSoft and one that demonstrates that these customers derive genuine value for money from our continued relationship.”

“We are also aware of our responsibility to provide real value to our customers. These new agreements are a measure of this and our capacity to provide solutions and services to match customer needs.”