NHS medecine agency signs up Accenture

The NHS agency responsible for medical drug standards has signed a £50m outsourcing deal with consultancy Accenture.

The Medicines Control Agency (MCA) ensures all medicines on the UK market meet established criteria for safety and quality.

Under the 10-year contract signed last month, the agency's 10 IT staff will move to Accenture and the consultancy will take responsibility for maintenance of existing infrastructure and the development of new systems.

The plan was developed in response to increasing demands for information from MCA stakeholders. As existing IT systems reached the end of their useful lives the free flow of information was becoming restricted, says the agency.

'The deal is a most exciting opportunity to redesign the business processes. The benefit will be more efficient processes, modern, flexible systems enabling us to better deal with the increasing interfaces within government and the NHS and the changing European environment,' said an MCA spokesman.