NHS IT director general Richard Granger has stepped in to delay the formal announcement of proposals to swap software suppliers for the London region.
Sources close to the £6bn National Programme for IT (NPfIT) say the plans for prime contractor BT to replace GE Healthcare with rival Cerner will still go ahead, but have been postponed for two weeks.
A revised timetable is expected to be agreed this week, but the proposed switch is on hold while Granger’s Connecting for Health team reviews the supplier situation across the programme.
GE inherited the London contract through its takeover of BT subcontractor IDX in November. At the time of the acquisition, IDX had already been replaced with Cerner by Fujitsu in the South because of delays in delivering the next-generation system.
So far in London the software has been installed in only one new NHS trust.
iSoft, the NPfIT’s other major software subcontractor, is also facing difficulties. The supplier to the East and North East regions has a patchy implementation record, and last week announced a second delay in reporting its annual results. It has also revised its expected profits twice so far this year.
Bill Green, chief executive of Accenture, which is prime contractor in the two iSoft regions, said last week that the company has contingency plans.
‘We are watching the iSoft situation closely,’ he said. ‘We have a series of alternatives and we’re prepared to go with those if it becomes necessary.’
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