NHS Trust gets EPR ahead of national deal

A £14.9m electronic patient records (EPR) contract has been signed by a Derbyshire NHS trust despite the imminence of the £2.3bn National Programme.

A series of large-scale EPR deals have been cancelled just before the contract was signed because of fears of overlap with the Integrated Care Records Service at the heart of the national NHS IT strategy (Computing 28 May and 23 April).

Southern Derbyshire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is going ahead with EPR because of the timing, says finance and information Chris Calkin.

'We have just signed a £330m private finance deal for a new hospital, to be delivered from 2006 to 2008.

'Our strategy was to make sure EPR was implemented and beginning to work rather than moving into new hospitals and having a new computer system at the same time,' he said.

'We fully support the National Programme, but the timescales just don't fit.'

The Design Authority set up to oversee the development of national standards signed the project off before it went ahead, says Calkin.

'We had to pass a functionality test that showed our project had 80 per cent or higher of the functionality of the National Programme,' he said.

Derbyshire's contract with supplier iSoft includes both EPR and a Picturing Archiving Communications System. Once the project is live authorised staff will be able to access xrays, medical images and patient records at the point of care.