NHS IT programme starts to see benefits of central purchasing

Prices agreed for the NHS National Programme for IT deals will justify central purchasing, says Richard Granger, director general of health service technology.

Contracts with suppliers for six of the remaining seven deals making up the £2.3bn programme are due to be signed before the end of the year.

'Over the next few weeks we will start to see pricing provisions achieved on Local Service Provider (LSP) contracts dramatically reduced, and we've achieved world first prices on a number of things we're procuring,' Granger told an Institute of Economic Affairs conference in London last week.

'Why do things centrally?' he said. 'Because it is quicker, more efficient and more cost effective.'

Granger scotched rumours that the National Programme deals are likely to slip significantly behind schedule.

'We are on track to have gone through the selection and signature for the data spine and the LSPs for London and the North East by end of November and to conclude the second wave of LSP deals by Christmas,' he said.

We are about two months ahead of schedule for the N3 network infrastructure and expect to conclude negotiations in late January.'

Timescales are of crucial importance to public sector IT projects, says Granger.

'One thing that is often wrong in Public Private Partnerships is the delivery timetable is taken up with the procurement but the go-live data doesn't change and that stacks the risk for both parties,' he said.

'The balance between the level of specification and the amount of time suppliers are given to deliver is also frequently bent out of shape - a three-year procurement runs through one full technology cycle and slightly more than half the life of the equipment being procured.'