£180m for South Acute
- 26 June 2013
More than £80m of central funding will be available to southern NHS trusts to buy clinical IT systems as part of the South Acute programme.
The six groups of trusts will also contribute more than £100m to buy a variety of IT systems ranging from e-prescribing to clinical portals.
The acute programme received final approval for its outline business case from the treasury last month.
It is made up of 23 trusts that did not get any systems under NPfIT.
Board papers from the latest Health and Social Care Information Centre meeting say the groups can, “commence procurement of much needed clinical systems that will help trusts provide safer care, improve their efficiency and support the drive for a paperless NHS”.
They reveal that the trusts will provide more than half of the funding required, £106.5m, with the Department of Health, through NHS England, providing the remaining £82.5m to cover supplier implementation and services charges.
“Many of these trusts have been anticipating central funding for systems for many years and are currently operating on systems at end of life, or paper,” the minutes say.
“The programme is locally led and owned, with trusts selecting systems and signing contracts directly with their chosen supplier at the end of the process.”
Trusts were supported through the business case process by the South Local Clinical Systems programme team, part of the HSCIC local service provider delivery directorate.
They provided procurement advice, programme assurance, business case writing expertise and led the approval of the business case through the central government approval process.
The acute programme is one of four SLCS projects, including community and child, ambulance and integration.
The £32m business case for the community and child health procurement recently got final sign-off by government and will see nine organisations deploy TPP’s SystmOne.
The HSCIC minutes say the first contracts have been signed between participating providers and TPP.
The six South Acute groups are:
Group A –Salisbury, Poole Hospital, Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospitals, Portsmouth Hospitals, Royal Surrey, and University Hospitals Bristol – want an electronic prescribing and medicines administration system.
Group B – Queen Victoria Hospital, East Sussex Healthcare, Western Sussex Hospitals – want electronic document management and a clinical portal.
Group C – South Devon Healthcare, Torbay and Southern Devon Health and Care, NHS Devon, Devon Partnership NHS Trust, South Western Ambulance Service and Rowcroft Hospice – want an ePrescribing system.
Group D – East Kent Hospitals and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells – want a PAS+, clinical portal and maternity system.
Group E – Gloucestershire Hospitals, Northern Devon Healthcare, and Yeovil District Hospital – want an integrated clinical information system.
Group F – Frimley Park Hospital, Ashford and St Peter’s Hospital, Heatherwood and Wexham Park Hospitals – want a clinical electronic document management system.
