NHS England signs digital urgent and emergency care contracts

NHS England has signed two contracts to support the digital transformation of urgent and emergency care (UEC), totalling £86 million in value.

A three-year contract which began on 15 August 2024, with a value of between £28.1 million and £37.4m has been awarded to Kainos Software to support the transformational activities of the digital UEC team.

According to the contract award notice, initial transformation activities will focus on the NHS Pathways triage software behind 111 and some 999 providers, the directory of services and UEC data, but when required will also span into other areas and products within UEC across all delivery teams.

A second NHSE contract has been awarded to Accenture to support the continuous iteration activities in the digital UEC portfolio, which focuses on all products and services under the umbrella of digital UEC.

It comprises of several workstreams, including NHS Pathways, real-time information through the directory on which services and clinicians are available, digital referrals and consultations, data insights and interoperability standards.

The contract has a value of between £36.9m and £49.3m, started on 15 August 2024 and will run for three years.

In May 2024, NHSE sent a letter to each integrated care board and NHS trust in England, setting out new UEC guidance focused on ensuring patients do not wait beyond 12 hours in the emergency department.

The letter, from Sarah-Jane Marsh, national director of UEC and Dr Julian Redhead, national clinical director for UEC, lists updated priorities to improve UCE performance in 2024/25, which include ensuring capacity for virtual ward beds is consistently utilised above 80%.

It followed an analysis by the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, published in April 2024, which found there were nearly 300 deaths a week associated with long emergency care waits in 2023, with more than 1.5 million patients waiting 12 hours or longer.

Meanwhile, in March 2024, Digital Health News reported that Kainos and Our Future Health extended their strategic digital delivery partnership aimed at advancing the UK’s largest health research programme.