Morecambe Bay sticks with CSC’s Lorenzo

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust has decided to stick with Lorenzo when its national contract for the electronic patient record expires this July.

The trust was the acute ‘early adopter’ for the system developed by iSoft, which was later bought by CSC, and which was due to be rolled out across the North, Midlands and East of England as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

Although the system was hit by development and deployment delays, the trust gave an early version of the system a ‘soft landing’ in 2008.

It went on to become a reference site for the later Lorenzo 1.9 and by late 2012 was saying that it expected to have a full electronic patient record within 18 months.

Despite this, the trust decided in 2014 to go out to tender for a new contract, using a framework contract drawn up by NHS Shared Business Services to support trusts in the NME whose NPfIT contracts are expiring this year.

The trust considered four bidders from the pre-qualified suppliers on the framework: Allscripts, Meditech, CSC and IMS Maxims.

CSC emerged as the preferred bidder, and the trust board confirmed its preferred bidder status last week.

“Following the expiration of the nationally funded contract in July 2016, which permits the trust to use the Lorenzo electronic patient record, the report recommended that the trust continued to use Lorenzo,” the relevant board item says.

Aaron Cummins, deputy chief executive and director of finance at the trust, also said in a statement to Digital Health News: "The trust's board approved the recommendations made by the finance committee to move to the preferred supplier, which is CSC Lorenzo.

"A full business case will be submitted to the board of directors at their meeting in June 2016 for approval."

CSC became the local service provider for the NME after Accenture pulled out of the national programme in 2006.

Although it deployed Lorenzo in just a handful of trusts, it implemented a significant number of ‘interim’ systems, including older iSoft patient administration and clinical systems, and these contracts are all due to end in July.

The Health and Social Care Information Centre has been monitoring trust readiness for the end of these contracts.

The latest figures indicate that just 15 system deployments are at risk of missing the deadline, and that the vast majority of trusts are due to stick with CSC as their clinical systems provider.

In addition, Digital Health News reported last year that 11 trusts in the NME have received central funding from the Department of Health to deploy Lorenzo, as part of a deal with the company to draw a line under NPfIT but make the system available to NME trusts that wanted it.

CSC has also won business outside the NME, with Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust confirming last week that it is due to go live with Lorenzo in October.