DHSC announces procurement for social care interoperability architecture

The Department of Health and Social Care has announced a procurement for an interoperability platform for adult social care. 

The interoperability architecture is meant to support the care and treatment of both patients and users of health and adult social care services and help the extraction of data to identified IT systems, including shared care records, according to the prior information notice published on the government’s procurement website.  

The service will help manage the sharing of agreed data and documents for care and treatment, as well as the real time or near real time sharing of data and documents for secondary use, including commissioner and CQC reporting to other IT systems. 

The architecture provider will also be responsible for supporting authentication and authorisation to access the data and documents, ensuring security of the platform, including cyber and information governance technical controls and providing supporting services, including a service/support desk. 

The DHSC said it was hoping to engage with suppliers “to understand the supplier market view of what will be required in any new contract including interoperability standards to enable information to be shared.” The department said in the notice that it was “interested in understanding different options and costs to meet the requirement.” 

The notice added that the department does not yet have an agreed date to go out to procurement, as the project is subject to funding approval from HM Treasury, although it said it expected the contract will be formally advertised in or around April 2025. It said the contract is not expected to be less than 9 years, subject to funding.