Imperial’s Cerner plans delayed again

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust has delayed deploying the Cerner Millennium patient administration system and maternity module until 2014.

Papers from the trust’s May board meeting reveal that NHS London is not providing transitional funding of £7m for Cerner as planned and identify Imperial’s failure to deploy Millennium on time as a ‘key risk’.

The trust deployed the first module of its Millennium project – order communications – as part of NPfIT in September 2011.

The trust was planning the next phase of the roll-out, PAS and maternity, for Spring 2013, but this did not go ahead.

A report to the Audit and Risk Committee meeting in March of this year reveals that a tentative go-live was then set for August 2013.

However, Imperial confirmed to EHI this week that phase two will not go ahead until 2014.

“The trust is taking a rigorous approach to assuring that the system will be ready to be taken into live operation, and that staff will be fully prepared,” a spokesperson said.

“We anticipate that the go-live date for the PAS and maternity module will be in 2014.”

The trust’s annual plan for 2013-2014, published as part of its May 2013 board papers, says that NHS London did not provide transitional funding of £7m for Cerner as planned, but this was offset by net improvements in other income and costs.

An Imperial spokesperson did not provide any detail about why the £7m was not provided.

The document says Imperial planned to spend £4.5m on the Cerner implementation this year and identifies failure to implement the Cerner PAS and maternity system within agreed time scales as a ‘key risk’.

It says the trust has established a Cerner Programme Board with the chief operating officer as the senior responsible officer

“Testing and repeat testing is underway with a go-live date to be agreed,” it says.

The impact of not deploying Cerner means the trust is unable to produce quality data including performance data. It also impacts upon services provided to patients and incurs financial losses, the papers say.

Another London trust due to get Cerner under NPfIT, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust, was due to go-live in late 2012. The trust confirmed to EHI that it plans to deploy Millennium this August.