Two Yorks trusts can EPR procurements

Two Yorkshire trusts have cancelled their procurements for electronic patient record systems.

Sheffield Children’s NHS Foundation Trust and Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust both recently informed suppliers that their EPR tender notices have been cancelled.

However, both trusts – which are running legacy McKesson patient administration systems – say they will be re-tendering soon.

Sheffield Children’s tender notice was placed in November last year. It said the trust was looking to procure an EPR in two stages, starting with a replacement patient administration system.

However, chief operating officer Isabel Hemming said the trust had decided to do further work on its strategy before re-tendering.

“We placed an advert requesting expressions of interest as an initial step in procuring a new EPR system, but since then we decided to undertake further work on our strategy and felt it appropriate to postpone the procurement,” Hemming said.

“We have been well supported by a consultant in this work and will be re-starting the procurement over the next few months.”

Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals contracts manager Peter Allen also wrote recently to suppliers saying its procurement exercise for a replacement PAS has been aborted.

The original tender notice, issued in June last year, said the trust was procuring a PAS.

However, it also said it wanted the solution to include A&E and patient flow functionality, clinical coding and case note tracking, and said it could also cover clinical correspondence, assessments and care pathways.

The supplier notice simply says that the procurement process did not generate sufficient competition to allow the process to continue.

“This is dictated by the trust’s standing financial orders that stipulates more than one offer should be received,” it said in a letter sent to suppliers.

“The trust would like to thank you for taking part in the process and will now instigate a fresh competition, all previous bidders will be invited to re-enter.”