The National Programme was launched by the Department of Health in June 2002 with the publication of 'Delivering 21st Century IT Support for the NHS'. The strategy was released following a Treasury-backed report from Derek Wanless in April advocating doubled annual investment in health service IT, and massively increased spending on the NHS in the Budget. The budget for the National Programme is £2.3bn over the next three years and it is central to plans to modernise the health service.

The programme breaks down into four main elements - national applications for electronic bookings, prescriptions and patient records, and a high-speed broadband infrastructure.

The Integrated Care Records Service (ICRS) application is the heart of the programme and will underpin the ebookings and eprescriptions services. A 'spine' of basic patient information and an overall 'history' will be created centrally and linked into individual treatment details held on specialist local systems.

How will the programme be implemented?

LSPs:

Five Local Service Providers will be appointed to manage the implementation of national applications including local ICRS systems in five regional 'clusters' of Strategic Health Authorities. The five clusters are: London, North East, Yorkshire and the Humber, South East and South West, East of England and East Midlands, and West Midlands and North West.

NASPs:

National Application Service Providers will be appointed to build and run the central applications for ebookings, eprescriptions and the data spine. Since the original strategy was produced elements of the eprescriptions application have been rolled into the specification for ICRS. Details about the delivery of the remains of the eprescriptions functionality are yet to be decided.

Infrastructure:

The existing NHSNet connecting the country's GPs and hospitals is to be expanded and upgraded. The new network - called N3 - will provide at speeds of at least 2 mb/s to support the national applications.

Who is in the running for what?

LSPs:

London - BT and IBM. Lockheed Martin was also on the shortlist but withdrew from the competition earlier this month

North East, Yorkshire and the Humber - Accenture, Cerner and Patient First Alliance led by Jarvis

South East and South West - Fujitsu, PlexusCare led by EDS and LogicaCMG and SchlumbergerSema

East of England and East Midlands - Accenture, Cerner, CGEY and PlexusCare

West Midlands and North West - BT, CSC, Fujitsu, IBM and Patient First Alliance

NASPs:

Ebooking - SchlumbergerSema looks likely to win the contract. EDS and Fujitsu were on the original shortlist.

Data spine - BT and IBM. Lockheed withdrew earlier this month, at the same time as its withdrawal from the LSP competition.

N3 infrastructure:

BT, EDS and Cable & Wireless

When are deals due to be signed?

LSPs:

Deals are due to be signed in two phases. The first 'wave', consisting of the London and North East, Yorkshire and the Humber clusters, are due to be completed by the end of next month. The remaining three will be signed by the end of the year.

NASPs:

The ebooking project is the most advanced and is due to be signed in the next 3 to 4 weeks. The data spine contract is due for completion by the end of next month.

Infrastructure:

The N3 deal is due to be signed early in 2004. The new network will be rolled out as existing NHS contracts end.