NHS Programme selects suppliers

Thirty-one suppliers have been selected for the second stage of the purchasing process for the £2.3bn National Programme for NHS IT.

The bids are from consortia and individual companies as suppliers compete for some of the public sector's biggest technology contracts.

'We were very pleased by the number and quality of the expressions of interest which provides confidence that at the end of the competition the successful bidders will be capable of meeting the stringent quality and competency requirements of this programme,' said Richard Granger, director general of NHS IT.

There are two types of contract on offer. Local Service Providers (LSPs) will provide a single point of contact for end users and will manage all local and desktop systems. There will be a total of five - one for London and four for the rest of the country - and each LSP will sub-contract much of the specialist work to health sector suppliers. The first LSP contracts are due to be signed in the autumn.

National Application Service Providers (NASPs) will be contracted to deliver the ebookings, eprescriptions, and Integrated Care Records System software.

Twenty-seven submissions qualified for the next stage of the LSP contract process and 20 are being considered for the NASP role.

Most of the big names in IT services are included on the list including IBM, EDS, Accenture, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Fujitsu Services and SchlumbergerSema. Some companies are involved in more than one consortium.

Suppliers are now waiting for the full details of the procurement process from the Department of Health before their bids can be progressed.

It is not yet clear whether the consortia tendering for the LSP deals are all bidding against each other for generic contracts, or will be asked to offer a proposition for a single contract in a specific geographic area.