Cohen: Morecambe Bay go-live ‘early May’

Gary Cohen has predicted that the latest version of Lorenzo will go live at University Hopsitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust in May 2010.

The executive chairman and chief executive of iSoft told the Financial Times "we are confident that we have a go-live in early May."

He made his comments the day after NHS chief information officer Christine Connelly confirmed that the trust had not gone live with Lorenzo Regional Care Release 1.9 by the 31 March deadline she set last year.

Cohen added that he had: “Absolute confidence in the Lorenzo solution” and that testing has provided “much confidence” that the product “will be able to go live in the next few weeks.”

When E-Health Insider sought to follow up his comments, both iSoft and CSC, the local service provider for the North, Midlands and East of England, refused to comment.

However, in an interview with HIStalk, posted on the iSoft website, Cohen expanded on his position. “Morecambe Bay is going to go-live. No one is suggesting that it is not going live," he said.

“If the trust has made a commitment to go-live, which we know that has, the fact that it might be delayed by some weeks is – leaving aside what contractual agreements exist between CSC and the NHS because of the payments – it is not in any way a train wreck.”

The delay at Morecambe Bay is expected to result in knock-on delays at other trusts planning to go-live following its deployment.

Last summer, trusts in this position had their go-live dates pushed back following a realignment of the programme by NHS Connecting for Health and the suppliers involved, to allow them to concentrate on the March milestone.

EHI understands that Birmingham Women’s and Kettering General Hospital trusts were due to go live in May 2010 with Lorenzo R1.9, with Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust following in June.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: "We are continuing to work with CSC under the terms of the existing contract and with trusts in the North, Midlands and East of England to determine the date for when Lorenzo will be introduced at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust and subsequently at other trusts. Once agreed, the trusts will be able to plan their local implementations."

Links: ISoft confident of NHS IT project launch: FT (registration required).

Interview with Gary Cohen, HIStalk.