Consortium saves £110m on EPR costs

A consortium of 38 trusts in London and the South has saved £110m by moving to individual contracts with electronic patient record suppliers.

The organisations got Servelec's (previously CSE's) RiO EPR delivered by BT under the National Programme for IT and created a framework to replace their systems before the national contract expires this October.

Consortium chair Peter Gooch said it had saved around £80 million on the cost of an EPR versus what the Department of Health was paying, based on information presented to the Public Accounts Committee in 2013. 

The trusts saved a further £30 million by undertaking mini-competitions, driving prices down from the "already low" framework published costs.

"This demonstrates NHS trusts working collaboratively to ensure huge savings of public money. The suppliers also deserve credit for the savings as they have stepped up to the plate, geared up their resources and reacted quickly and positively to the opportunities presented by the CIS framework," Gooch said.

Servelec told EHI News 20 of the trusts have chosen to go with the Open RiO EPR. Consortium figures show a further eight have chosen to move to Advanced Health and Care's system, while Emis has won four trusts and TPP won five.

A number of consortium members have already moved out of the BT data centre and are live on their new systems. The rest are planning go-lives between now and September.

Gooch said the framework has enabled suppliers to enter a new marketplace and has driven innovation and functionality enhancements.

"It’s making things very competitive as suppliers push resource and effort into contract wins within these new areas," he said.

Three or four trusts in the North Midlands and East are also using the framework to replace their systems before the NME contract expires in July next year.

Alan Stubbs, Servelec chief executive, said the company is pleased with its 20 wins. Four sites have already gone live and the roll-out is "going extremely well".

The open version of RiO allows them to determine their own configuration and to add further RiO products such as mobile and e-prescribing, which they could not do under national contracts.

“This gives us a really solid foundation for going after the refresh in the north,” said Stubbs.

Emis director of community, children's and mental health Martin Bell said the company met its expectations with regards to the number of contracts it won and is hopeful of picking up a fifth consortium member.

“It's been a great collaborative process both in terms of the trusts collaborating and collaboration with suppliers,” said Bell.

“Within the framewok [Gooch] and his team have allowed individual trusts to express their individuality so where they had different requirements, that’s been able to be quite easily accommodated."

He said data migration from the BT data centre is being done on a trust-by-trust basis and is going well.

“Data migration is often one of the big challenges that trusts face and needs to be got right as if it’s wrong, it has a major impact on the deployment,” said Bell.

Advanced Health and Care managing director Jim Chase said the framework was helpful in providing a broad definition of functional requirements and understanding of the contractual arrangements.

“But each mini-competition has taken on its own flavour so it’s not been a simple call-off, everyone has had their own view of how they want to progress,” he explained.

Two trusts have already gone live with Advanced’s Carenotes.

“LPP from a procurement point of view is coming to an end so we’re all focused on delivering the projects that we have to deliver and we are starting to look at the projects that are coming to us from the north,” said Chase.

A TPP spokesperson said the Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust is already live with SystmOne. She said the switching process has been smooth and the remaining trusts should be live by the end of this year.