Humber tests market ahead of NPfIT end

Humber NHS Foundation Trust is running a market engagement exercise to look at the options available when its National Programme for IT contract for Lorenzo comes to an end.

The trust became one of the highest profile users of Lorenzo when it became the mental health ‘early adopter’ for the system, taking over from Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust when it pulled out of the programme in April 2011.

It has since been an enthusiastic supporter of the system, which was intended to be the ‘strategic’ system for the whole of the North, Midlands and East of England, until it was hit by development and deployment delays.

However, Humber’s NPfIT contract comes to an end in July 2016, and it is “looking into the options available in the market place” ahead of a possible procurement later this year.

A spokesperson from Humber told EHI that to ensure it would get the best possible value for money, “we are carrying out market testing with all potential suppliers of an EPR system to seek some basic views in helping us better understand the landscape and the size and maturity of the market.”

“The results of the market testing will help the development of an outline business case for the Trust’s clinical system after July 2016,” said the spokesperson.

A prior information notice issued last week sets out ambitious targets for a future electronic patient record. The trust says a system must “meet all the requirements of our mental health and community services disciplines.”

It must also achieve all nine levels of the Clinical Digital Maturity Index for mental health trusts that is being developed by EHI Intelligence with NHS England. And it must help the trust to hit health secretary Jeremy Hunt’s target for a ‘paperless’ NHS by 2018.

The prior information notice is one of the first to set out the requirement for a healthcare IT system to help a trust move up or achieve all the levels of the CDMI, but NHS England has said that its future technology strategy and the later rounds of the tech fund will focus on this.

Humber went live with Lorenzo in May 2012, when 500 staff across 50 sites started to use it. It was one of the first to trial the mobile version of the system, and now has plans to create a unified electronic patient record with Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust, which is also using the system.

The prior information notice says any future EPR must be able to migrate or link data from existing systems. It must also be “allow for mobility” and be “user friendly and intuitive to use.”

Other requirements include an ability to capture structured information for business intelligence, and enable the trust to “become paperless for clinical systems.” For this, the trust is expecting to spend between £3m and £6.5m.

If the trust decides to undertake a full OJEU procurement for a new system, it will begin this process in autumn.