Granger says firms will sign up to terms and conditions

NHS IT Director General Richard Granger, has rejected claims that the terms and conditions included in contracts for the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) are too onerous for bidders to sign up to, and stated that he is convinced firms will sign up to the arrangements.

The most compelling evidence of this claim was provided this week when the Department of Health announced that SchlumbergerSema has been awarded a £64.5m, five-year deal to deliver electronic appointment booking. The milestone contract award comes one year after Mr Granger came into post.

Responding to reports that suppliers have been baulking at the tough terms and conditions demanded by the National Programme, and steep penalty payments the NHS IT Director General commented: “There has been speculation that the contractual agreement we are seeking to secure do not represent an equitable relationship.”

He said that this was simply not true, and that reports suggesting that eye watering terms and conditions were the reason for Lockheed Martin’s withdrawal from the procurement competition in August were inaccurate. Mr Granger said that such concerns had never been raised by Lockheed Martin.

Announcing the award of the e-booking contract Mr Granger made clear that his principal concern in negotiations was to secure a good deal for the NHS together with mechanisms for ensuring the service specified is delivered. “I am particularly pleased that the arrangements under which the service will be delivered provide significant protection to the NHS with regard to delivery and performance.”

Speaking to E-Health Insider Mr Granger said that the terms and conditions contained in the e-booking contract will provide the template for the remaining Local Service Provider (LSP) and National Application Service Provider (NASP) contracts to follow by the end of the year.

Mr Granger stressed that the e-booking contract had not been awarded to the only firm prepared to sign up the terms and conditions – both Fujitsu and SchlumbergerSema had been prepared to sign up. “The T&Cs secured on e-booking, and secured from both short listed parties, are comparable with those secured two years earlier on congestion charging,” said Mr Granger.

Asked about the terms and conditions secured with SchlumbergerSema would probably form the template for remaining seven major contracts to be signed, Mr Granger said; “We are likely to use terms and conditions in a consistent way across the whole of the programme.”

Mr Granger added that he already had strong evidence that other firms would sign up to the terms and condition for other parts of the programme. “I’ve got evidence from the first two LSPs and the NASP that we will reach an agreement on that basis.”

It remains to be seen though how these same terms and conditions will be scaled from a £64.5m contract principally focused on delivery of a discrete service remains to be seen. The LSP and NASP contracts will be much more complex and expensive and involve far more risk due to the huge implementation and integration task involved.

What Mr Granger did confirm is that the roll-out of e-booking across England by 2005 will not just be to make the service available to also ensure it is used. “The service is to be available and used by the end of 2005,” he stated.

Another aspect of the e-booking contract that looks certain to be mirrored in the LSP and NASP contracts is that a lot of the detail will only be worked out after the contract award. Asked about the details of phasing of e-booking after the initial phase one roll-out Mr Granger said:

“We are still defining the detail of that. There will be an initial roll-out to early adopters, then there will be a check, then a further roll out to a larger number of sites, then a further roll out to the rest of the country.”

Mr Granger also emphasisied that the negotiations underway on the LSP and NASP contracts involved considerable give and take on both sides, with assumptions and requirements being revisited on a pragmatic basis. One example of this, confirmed by Mr Granger, was movement on the requirements for 99.99% uptime availability of the Integrated Care Records Service (ICRS), as required in the Output Based Specification for ICRS.

Asked whether there had been movement on the system availability requirement Mr Granger told E-Health Insider “Yes that is correct, availability has varying importance during the course of the day.”