UCLH London NHS Trust seeks IT partner to aid its digital transformation

A £400m 10-year contract up for grabs

The University College London Hospitals NHS Trust (UCLH) has submitted a tender for a 10-year digital transformation contract worth up to £400m.

The tender, which starts at £150m, seeks a partner to develop a unified ICT service model designed to "provide staff and patients with access to the right systems, at the right place, at the right time to enable the delivery of efficient and effective patient cares".

While the tender did not provide much more than an overview into to how the Trust wants its IT to be shaped over the next decade, it did outline several goals it wants its successful strategic partner to achieve.

These include the provision of innovative technologies that support the Trust's strategic and digital transformation agendas, the improvement of the quality of service provided to users of the technology, value for money while delivering improved services and tangible benefits for the organisation.

The Trust's digital transformation programme will encompass all application and technical architecture, data management, information governance, managing procurement and IT contracts, and system integrations.

It will also involve working on foundation services, such as application support and maintenance, information security, running a service desk, and proving technology training to the hospital's staff.

UCLH is ideally looking for a single supplier to become its strategic partner, though it said consortiums would be considered if the companies nominate a primary contractor and provide an appropriate guarantee to deliver the objectives outlined in the tender. The Trust is also limiting the number of bidders to a maximum of 10.

Like much of the wider public sector, the NHS's is keen to pursue digital transformation as a means to deliver more cost-effective services.