NHS contract wranglings continue

Connecting for Health and BT have been locked in negotiations for some time

BT last week submitted another bid to Connecting for Health to run the Southern region of the £12.7bn National Programme for IT (NPfIT), according to sources close to the telecoms and services company.

Connecting for Health (CfH) and BT have been locked in tense negotiations on the potential deal, and the telco has had at least one bid already knocked back by CfH, which runs the NPfIT.

People close to the negotiations are not hopeful that the parties will be able to hammer out a deal, pointing to the suspended rollout of the programme in London, where sites that have gone live under BT’s supervision suffer continued problems. The financial consequences have hit hospitals and BT’s service division.

The six-month transitional period, set up to allow CfH to find a replacement supplier for Fujitsu in the Southern region of the NPfIT, has been extended by a further six months as project leaders struggle to find any takers.

The Department of Health terminated Fujitsu’s £896m contract on 28 May 2008. However, the company must now continue working for CfH until 28 May 2009, when the extended transitional period ends.

BT is the only company currently bidding for the region, and has experience of installing the Cerner Millennium patient record system used by Fujitsu in the Southern area.

"If negotiations fail the most likely outcome is that responsibility for installing the patient record system will fall on local trusts, which would have been the most sensible solution in the first place," said one industry source.

A spokesman for NHS CfH said: "We would not comment on negotiations with suppliers beyond saying that they are continuing. This remains the case with BT. "