Suppliers give NHS a healthy response

The Department of Health has received 99 responses to its advertisement for suppliers for the NHS National Programme.

In an exclusive interview, NHS IT director general Richard Granger told Computing that the high number of responses shows the industry is 'voting with its feet' in support of the programme.

'Probably the strongest sense of the market being supportive of our approach is the number and calibre of organisations who have responded. It's the market saying - we are up for doing this and we are putting our best foot forward,' he said.

There are two types of contract on offer at this stage. Local Service Providers will cover regional areas and provide a single point of contact for all NHS staff in that district.

National Application Service Providers (NASP) applications such as electronic bookings and prescriptions will be run in a limited number of locations and connected to the NHS desktops managed as part of the LSP contracts.

Granger hopes to have a 'long list' for LSP and NASP contracts by the end of this month. The first deals will be signed in late October.

The third piece of the supplier framework is a programme management role to provide the 'glue' between regional LSPs and NASPs. There are five shortlisted firms and Granger says the winner is likely to be announced within the week.

'By the end of this month we will have a longlist [for LSPs and NASPs] and a top-quality programme management resource so we will be set fair for the delivery of the rest of the procurement over the summer,' he said.