New consultancy wins Cambridge contract

A new company, EPR Works, has won the contract to project manage the eHospital programme at Cambridge University Hospitals and Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trusts.

The company was incorporated on 5 March this year by directors David Kwo, Keith Swinburne and Caroline Armitage.

Armitage is the eHospital programme director at Cambridge University Hospitals and Swinburne is the Papworth eHospital programme director.

Kwo, who headed the London ‘cluster’ for the National Programme for IT in the NHS in the early 2000s, when it was appointing a local service provider, also works on the Cambridge programme as a consultant.

A spokesman for the trusts confirmed the three directors of EPR Works are contracted by either Cambridge or Papworth, but said they are not employed by the trusts.

“We can confirm that EPR Works is the preferred bidder for the project management consultancy services following an open and fair OJEU competition in line with public procurement processes,” the spokesperson said.

The two trusts are involved in a major redevelopment programme to create a new health campus. The eHospital component is a marquee healthcare IT project, for which there was massive interest from suppliers.

After drawing up an all US shortlist, the two trusts awarded the software component of the electronic patient record project to Epic in April this year. The hardware and infrastructure part of the tender was awarded to Hewlett Packard.

In March, a tender was released for systems and technical consultancy services to support the programme.

The document says the trusts are looking for a company to provide the “overall programme management direction and project and programme managers for the implementation of technology and business change services.”

The two-year programme includes the transition from an in-house technical infrastructure, including networks, servers and desktops, to a fully managed service. Also, the provision of new services to support new clinical and administrative applications.

The programme will be supported by existing project and programme staff within the trusts, supplemented by clinical and non-clinical staff seconded to the programme for up to two years.

Up to ten staff will have to be recruited externally including a programme director, two programme managers, a technical architect and benefits and business change leads.

EHealth Insider contacted Armitage and Swinburne for comment but they did not respond.

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