Nursing tech fund 2 awards announced

Electronic observations and mobile access projects are the big winners from the second round of NHS England’s Nursing Technology Fund, with 62 organisations splitting £35 million in funding.

NHS England has also suggested that it may be able to hand out further awards as a result of savings from procurement discussions with suppliers.

The organisation received 276 applications for the second round of the fund, which launched last November and closed a month later.

It named the successful awards yesterday, with electronic observations projects the biggest winners from the latest round with 20 projects receiving a total of £14.9 million between them.

Mobile access to digital care records across the community also appears to be a high-priority area, with £7.2 million split between 14 projects, while 11 projects for the digital capture of clinical data at the point of care have shared £7.1 million in funding.

In total, seven trusts or organisations received the highest award size of £1 million: 2gether NHS Foundation Trust, Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Marie Curie Cancer Care, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, and The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust.

NHS England said it had “pursued a number of opportunities to support [sic] local providers achieve ‘value for money’ in their procurement activity”, allowing it to stretch the funding further and consider further awards in 2015-16.

Successful and unsuccessful applicants will be able to access a number of catalogues developed to achieve better pricing for the procurement of mobile devices, while NHS England said it has also secured savings for electronic observations solutions.

Last November, the Department of Health announced that over a third of the £100 million due to be on offer through the fund was being withheld until it could “learn lessons from this initial investment” and consider a potential third round of funding.

In a statement at the time, a DH spokesperson told EHI that “decisions about the third phase of the roll-out will be made once lessons have been learned from this initial investment, allowing the fund to build on other improvements in technology that the NHS is delivering."

The Nursing Technology Fund was launched in autumn 2011 by Prime Minister David Cameron, and was taken over by NHS England in April the following year.

The first round of bidding secured 226 applications from 139 trusts, 74 of which were successful in winning £30 million for 80 projects.