Funding approved for South community

The release of central funding for nine southern community providers to purchase SystmOne Community is imminent.

EHI understands it will be the first release of central money for trusts that got nothing from the National Programme for IT in the NHS since the government formally axed the programme in September 2011.

NHS South East Coast chief information officer and procurement lead Tad Matus said all the necessary approvals had been given and final paperwork was being processed.

TPP was announced as the successful bidder for a £28m tender to provide an IT system for nine child and community health organisations in December.

Matus had expected contracts to be signed this February. However, the process was delayed while NHS Commissioning Board approval was sought.

The money available for Southern trusts to invest in new IT systems has transferred from the Department of Health to the NHS CB. It will be released to trusts when they get invoiced by suppliers.

Matus said the community providers were likely to start signing contracts with TPP at the end of this month and suppliers would be onsite soon after that.

TPP had subcontracted with Accenture to deploy the system so there was capacity for parallel deployments.

“The necessary information on sites and numbers of staff etc has been assembled and is available so the projects are all very quickly ready to go,” he said.

“It’s been a long journey, but a positive one so now it’s just general impatience on my side and everybody else to get the stuff on the ground and get the benefits of the solutions.”

Matus said reaching this final stage was “huge” for the other three Southern Local Clinical Systems procurements – ambulance, acute and integration.

A tender worth £19m covering four southern ambulance trusts was released in January and the outline business case for six acute projects is awaiting government approval, which is expected by April.

“This part gets solutions in for the community, but really it makes sure there’s an easy path to follow for the other three, in that the money provided to the commissioning board would encompass all of the procurements,” he explained.

“Community is the proof that the approval route does work so it’s major for the South.”

The nine organisations due to buy TPP are; Dorset HealthCare University NHS Foundation Trust; NHS Gloucestershire; Plymouth Community Healthcare CIC; Kent Community Health NHS Trust (child health only); Sussex Community NHS Trust; East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust; Care & Support Partnership CIC; Sirona Care & Health CIC; and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (child health) together with community services at Peninsula Community Health CIC.