NHS signs six more enterprise-wide agreements

The NHS could save £30m thanks to six enterprise-wide agreements signed with key technology providers.

Suppliers Cisco, EMC, HP, SeeBeyond, Sun Microsystems and Tata Consultancy are the latest to sign national framework deals as part of the £2.3bn National Programme for NHS IT (NPfIT).

By negotiating enterprise-wide deals, NPfIT aims to drive down prices be exploiting the health service's enormous economies of scale.

Gordon Hextall, National Programme chief operating officer said: 'Innovative arrangements such as these are another example of the National Programme ensuring that the NHS gets the best value for the systems and services it procures; that help deliver significant benefits for patient and clinicians alike.

'The arrangements we have with these suppliers will help ensure a modernised NHS supported by quality IT systems for the benefit of all.'

This week's deals follow a similar arrangement made with Oracle in January, expected to save £100m in licence fees.

At the time of the Oracle deal, NpfIT director general Richard Granger and health secretary John Reid met with Microsoft chairman Bill Gates to discuss a comparable agreement for desktop software.

The NpfIT says an agreement has been reached but is with Treasury for approval so the details cannot yet be released.

Granger told Computing in March that his aim was to cut NHS desktop software costs by half (see Computing 24 March).

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