Swedish company wins ambulance bid

A Swedish company is the preferred bidder for a £19m contract to provide IT systems for three southern ambulance trusts.

EHI reported in July that the procurement was on hold due to a legal challenge from one of the bidders involved, but it is now progressing again.

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “There was a legal challenge to the procurement but this has now been withdrawn. Commercial activities with Ortivus, the preferred bidder subject to contract, have now resumed.”

Ortivus is a Swedish company specialising in mobile systems for emergency medical care.

The company website says it has 20 employees in Sweden and the UK and more than 1300 ambulances using an Ortivus system called MobiMed Smart, which allows ambulance staff to handle documentation and monitoring while in the field.

“Prehospital pathways and triage can be easily introduced and adapted to the needs of their work,” the MobiMed description says.

The ambulance project is part of the Southern Local Clinical Systems programme for the 60% of providers in the South that otherwise got nothing from the National Programme for IT.

Four southern ambulance trusts – now three following a merger – issued a tender for IT services worth £19m in January this year.

The original tender notice said the trusts were looking for a single supplier to deliver a fully managed service to electronically capture, exchange and report on patient information.

The business case for the trusts was approved by the DH and Treasury to attract central funding.

The ambulance project was the second of four in the SLCS programme to gain approval for central funding.

Nine contracts have already been signed between NHS organisations and TPP as part of a £32m community and child health procurement.

More than £80 of central funding will also be available for six groups of 23 acute trusts looking to invest in IT.

The three ambulance trusts are the; South Western Ambulance Service; South Central Ambulance Service; and South East Coast Ambulance Service.