Five trusts to get £1m Lorenzo incentive

Five NHS trusts appear to have met the March deadline to commit to taking CSC’s Lorenzo electronic patient record system and qualify for the £1m incentive payment.

EHI exclusively reported last December that a new interim deal between the Department of Health and CSC established an ‘Incentive Fund’, whereby the first ten trusts that committed to taking the system by the end of March would receive a signing-on bonus of £1m for implementation expenses.

Trusts in the North, Midlands and East would get the Lorenzo software for free and get up to £4m for deployment and training costs.

The central support and funding can last for up to five years from implementation if the trust can develop a “robust business case” that is approved by a DH programme board.

EHI revealed this week that the deal could cost the Department of Health around £14m per trust.

Sales director for CSC health, Graham Frost, told EHI in December that he was confident ten trusts would commit by the March 2013 deadline.

“We’re expecting 24 trusts to go through PID by the end of 2014,” he added.

In an interview with EHI this month the new president of CSC Health, Andrea Fiumicelli, said the specific number of trusts being targeted to sign up for Lorenzo was not important.

“The target itself is irrelevant. We are making good progress and will have further announcements in the next few weeks and are continuing the expansion of functionalities,” he said.

A spokesperson from Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the first to announce it would implement the system under the new deal, said it had already gained approval from the DH.

“Approval was confirmed earlier this month following a presentation of the trust’s business case to the NHS Programme Board responsible for managing Lorenzo deployments,” he said.

“In implementing the system the trust can confirm it is drawing on financial support available from the DH.”

“However, this funding is subject to strict scrutiny and limits, and it is only to be paid to recompense the trust for the actual costs incurred in the deployment.”

Tameside is planning to go live with Lorenzo before the end of the year.

EHI reported earlier this week that The Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust expects to receive more than £4m for implementation and deployment support for taking Lorenzo. According to its business case, the DH would also pay nearly £9.6m in deployment and service charges.

To claim the deployment support, the trust would have to submit monthly reports to the DH.

Ipswich’s business case was approved by the trust board on 28 March and the trust expected to receive sign-off by the ‘Department of Health Programme Board’ on 4 April.

Derby Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has also submitted a business case to take the system.

Two other trusts, George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust and Hull and East Yorkshire Hospital NHS Trust, have confirmed their intention to implement the system, but have not yet submitted business cases to the DH.

Walsall Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust had been due to decide which system to deploy at a board meeting on 28 March, but told EHI that decision had now been delayed.

The deal has created uncertainty for suppliers in the NME as several trusts put procurements on hold while evaluating the Lorenzo offer.

NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson was due to face questions from the Public Accounts Committee about the incentive payments associated with the deal earlier this month, but the questioning was postponed until further notice.