Southern Cerner live sites collaborate

Nine Cerner live sites in the South have formed three groups to procure a replacement for Millennium beyond October 2015.

The trusts received Cerner’s Millennium electronic patient record system as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS, initially from local service provider Fujitsu, and then from BT. The contracts run out in October 2015.

Senior representatives of the trusts meet regularly as part of a Cerner live site group, but they have not previously released details of their plans.

NHS South East Coast chief information officer Tad Matus said the southern trusts had formed three groups to work on their plans for post-NPfIT contracts.

“The nine organisations won’t go as a single consortium, but three broad flavours of how they want to specifiy what they want to do,” he said.

While all the trusts would have to reprocure a system, this could be done via a framework contract or a formal OJEU. Two groups would procure collaboratively, while the third was made up of trusts that were likely to procure individually.

“Everybody needs to get out to procurement in the course of this year, so they’re not hanging around and are making sure they identify the right partnerships,” he added.

“If everybody went out independently at the same time acute suppliers would be struggling to write that many bids so it’s in everybody’s interest that that work together.”

The trusts were taking their plans to their boards for approval.

Matus said the arrangements were modelled on the Southern Local Clinical Systems programme which involves 21 trusts that got nothing through NPfIT.

These trusts have formed into six procurement groups and are planning to invest in a variety of systems from electronic document management to portals.

“That acute consortium approach is working very well so that’s very much the plan we are trying to follow,” he said.

Taunton and Somerset NHS Foundation Trust director of finance and IM&T, Simon Wombwell, told EHI last April that talks with other live sites were progressing too slowly, leading the trust to issue a prior information notice independently.

A spokesperson confirmed this month that Taunton was planning to release a tender for a new system this Friday or Monday, however it was not clear whether this would be a collaborative tender or individual.

She said the trust was, “engaged with other Southern Programme sites in developing an exit strategy from the BT contract.”

Thirty mental health trusts in London and the South are also working collaboratively to prepare for the end of national contracts in 2015.

The trusts put out a tender worth £50m – £300m last June. They expect to make a decision regarding what suppliers will be on the framework at the end of this month and have the contract ready for trusts to start using towards the end of April.

Nine London trusts that have Millennium or are planning to deploy it this year under NPfIT contracts went out to tender for a replacement system in February 2012. EHI reported this week that Cerner, InterSystems and Epic have been shortlisted for that framework contract.

Matus said he was working with the southern Cerner live sites as part of managing the end of the strategic health authorities.

“The DH will be identifying a senior responsible office to take on a key governance role and the information centre will be identifying staffing structures longer-term that meet all the needs, so I’m making sure the interim south vision of the staffing and governance groups is in place,” he explained.

The nine live Cerner sites are; Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust; Taunton & Somerset NHS Foundation Trust; Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust; Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust; Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust; Weston Area Health NHS Trust; North Bristol NHS Trust; and Royal United Hospital Bath NHS Trust.