Luton and Dunstable looks at Lorenzo

Luton and Dunstable University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is planning to submit a business case to procure CSC’s Lorenzo electronic patient record.

In board papers published early this summer, the trust says it has been “exploring the opportunity” to invest in Lorenzo as a unified solution to replace a number of existing systems, including CSC’s i.PM patient administration system.

The papers say: “The potential benefits of Lorenzo, which would substantially reduce the number of discrete systems, include (i) data quality improvements, (ii) much better usability, and (iii) safety and quality due to the increased opportunity for patient alerts on the system.”

The executive board has now reviewed the situation and given the go-ahead for the trust to submit a business case for the trust to receive additional investment from the Department Health to fund the implementation.

This extra cash is available to trusts in the North, Midlands and East of England as part of the revised contract between CSC and the DH that was signed to draw a line under the development and deployment delays that affected the system during the era of the National Programme for IT.

As part of the NPfIT, CSC had been contracted to deliver Lorenzo across the NME, but only a handful of ‘early adopter’ deployments were made. The new deal removed CSC’s exclusive right to provide the EPR to the area, but made central funding available to trusts who still wanted to purchase it; as long as they provided a robust business case.

Following a freedom of information request from Digital Health News, the DH last month confirmed that 11 trusts had taken advantage of this offer, ten of which had received the maximum available support package of £3.1 million.

The board papers for Luton and Dunstable suggest the trust is also looking to receive £3.1 million in central funding to support its plans. The DH would also pay a certain amount of money to CSC for both deployment charges and services charges.

In the 'finance, investment and performance committee' section of the July board papers, non-executive director Jill Robinson notes that there would be “short term cost implications” of proceeding with Lorenzo, but that the EPR was the “preferred choice in the longer term.”

“The committee agreed to proceed with the Lorenzo investment case recognising the longer term financial benefits.” According to the board papers, Luton and Dunstable has a deadline of 11 September 2015 to submit a business case to NHS England.