DH to award £80m contract for NHS Choices

Tags: Choice Community DH Dr Foster Government GP Information Information Centre iS NHS Choices NHS Direct Outsourcing Strategic

04 Dec 2007

The Department of Health has gone out to tender to find a new supplier to run the NHS Choices patient information website, in a lucrative three year deal initially worth £60-80m.

The chosen supplier will be expected to generate in excess of 20m hits to the NHS Choices website, together with generating significant revenue from the flagship service.

In 2007 Dr Foster Intelligence, a joint venture by the NHS Information Centre and Dr Foster, was appointed by the DH to establish the service, and deliver and run the website through to March 2008.

E-Health Insider understands that responses to the new DH tender are expected from many of the large firms currently involved in the NHS IT programme.

In its tender notice, now closed, the DH wrote: “The supplier will be responsible for expanding and operating the existing NHS Choices web service and, as the service evolves, investigation, and where needed development and operation of other electronic channels including mobile, kiosk and iDTV (Integrated Digital Television).

The tender document adds: “The supplier will be responsible for the majority of the business functions of the service including input into strategic direction, customer and market management, relations management with users and professionals, programme and technical development management and delivery and operations, including editorial and data content provision and publishing, live technical services operation and insight and feedback.”

A DH spokesperson said: “The tender commenced on October 26 and is expected to last approximately 7 months.

“The expected value of the procurement is between £60m and £80m, which is comparable to the cost of other significant services such as Directgov. The contract is for an initial period of 3 years, with the potential for up to 2 years extension.”

The DH gave a presentation on the website last month at DH offices in Skipton House, London, to answer questions on the procurement. Podcasts and hard copies were promised to those who could not attend. EHI requested copies, but the DH had not responded by time of publication.

Governance of the website will be retained by the DH but the government says it “now requires a professional, innovative, private sector supplier to manage and operate it.”

The service offers a wide range of accredited health information and services, from ‘Live Well’ magazine content aimed at specific audiences, through comprehensive Health A-Z for conditions and treatments information and health services directories, scorecards and user feedback.

In a recent exclusive interview with EHI, Matt Tee, chief executive officer of NHS Direct said that the future relationship between NHS Direct and NHS Choices will partly be determined by the procurement.

Tee told EHI that the NHS Choices project had been partly born out of the government’s frustration at the slow adoption of the choice policy by the public.

A source close to the NHS Choices project told EHI: “The DH are aware of all the negative press which has been surrounding the launch of the NHS Choices website and are keen to move in a different direction from the issues they have currently been facing. By outsourcing the service, they hope it can build a stronger online presence and community and earn respect from NHS staff and medical bodies.”

When the website was launched in June, Bruce Keogh, chair of the NHS Choices Clinical Advisory Group, told NHS staff: “You will see the first version of what can become one of the most useful health websites in the world.”

However, the new website was criticised by the British Medical Association as overloading patients with useless information that could cause unnecessary anxiety. The Patients' Association said it is a waste of money and any extra resources should be put into services dealing directly with patients.

GPs checking their details on the website told EHIPC that information on the site was up to six years out-of-date.

In response, the DH recently released software allowing GPs to update their own details but as EHIPC reported last month more than 200 GP practices were sent offensive passwords, to access their data, which had to be recalled.

The source added: “The website has been promoted heavily over the last two to three years and the DH is desperate for it not to fail. It hopes to find a supplier willing to work with the users to ensure it gets the recognition they feel it deserves as part of their commitment to choice.”

Links

NHS Choices

Dr Foster Intelligence

Joe Fernandez

Readers Comments

Quantifiable benefits

06 Dec 07 13:03

For such a significant chunk of money, it would be nice to have a clear indication of what benefits the DH think will come from this work - over and above the financial health of the contractors. I'm struggling to think of what would justify this kind of extravagance.

Also, there's no mention of any kind of evaluation, either of the current service or the proposed contract. Surely some assessment of the current service should have been a prerequisite for letting the contract.

What happens if (as I suspect) the public appetite for the Governments idea of 'Choice' remains low?

I see DH are on the ball.....

06 Dec 07 18:11

I see DH continue to demonstrate they have a grip of new media and technology ..... iDTV stands for INTERACTIVE Digital Television.

I do hope the procurement has not asked the supplier to deliver the reported Integrated Digital Televisions - they will have a lot of new TV sets to store somewhere - unless we are all about to get a free TV on the NHS?

So much?

07 Dec 07 05:33

Indeed, I am in compete agreement with the above comment. How on earth could a website suddenly cost so much. When the www.nhs.uk website was run from the NHSIA it managed quite nicely on a budget of £1.3m and that included offering enough support to the army of web editors to ensure good quality data on the site. Suddenly - a redesign and a few bits of video streaming and the cost has gone to £60m-£80m over 3 years. I appreciate there is some development work to enable information to be delivered through digital TV etc but that is one hell of a leap! Surely there needs to be some sense here!

Why so much ££££

07 Dec 07 11:24

Have to agree with the comments so far this is a vast amount of money to manage a website? I hadn’t realised web developers were on a few hundred thousand pounds each a year!

Justification must come before the DH look stupid for wasting tax payer’s money.

Take us to the cleaners ...

07 Dec 07 14:19

At least the DH is conducting a proper invitation to tender exercise this time. However, as head of an NHS web development service I can testify that £60-80m is a ridiculously high sum for the service proposed, even with all the TV, interaction, marketing and so on. Furthermore, how is it that the cost can be announced now while the tendering process still has several months to run? Surely that is only known once negotiations have been concluded with the chosen supplier. If a supplier came in with an offer of £10m, would it be rejected for being too low? Not that that would happen of course: now that suppliers (including our wonderful LSPs - sigh) have been told how much the DH is looking to spend, any such realistic prices will be bumped up accordingly.

(post edited by EHI)

An appalling waste of money

martin.briscoe@gmail.com

07 Dec 07 17:29

Given that the DoH has already poured something like 20 billion into NHS IT, wasting a mere 80 million on a web project that's likely to fail sounds about par for the course.

I edit one of the most popular mental health websites in the country with less than 2 dedicated staff. The joy of the Internet is that if your information is good enough then people will visit. Modern search engines will ensure that this happens.

The sad thing about this project is that it is our money they are wasting.

Martin Briscoe Hospital Consultant Exeter

www.nhs.uk

08 Dec 07 16:40

Was www.nhs.uk broken? Had users been flooding the site with complaints? It is very difficult to find Mental Health services on the homepage. There is a shortcut if you scroll down and look very carefully but most members of the public won't realise the page is so badly designed that you need to scroll down to see 50% of the home page content. 5/10 for content 6/10 for style

Revenue generation

10 Dec 07 10:32

"The chosen supplier will be expected to generate in excess of 20m hits to the NHS Choices website, together with generating significant revenue from the flagship service."

What does this mean. Are there going to be adverts. Will patients get their credit cards out for "premium content". Will you be able order Calpol directly from the "snotty nose" page?

Revenue Generation

11 Dec 07 13:01

...No silly, when you log your membership details on to the web site your address will be sold to the private secter so that they can send you all manner of useless rubbish. And then theres a cookie following where you go so the Health Insurance industry can keep tabs on what you are worried about. Then theres the drug companies selling you that face ointment you need for those clinically dangerous wrinkles you have. How much to put your asprin on the NHS brand? This Governement have went mad. We are selling our future or worse we are giving it away. We need to start some kind of a political movement to stop this. Write to your MP! This is the logic which ended up with cola company machines in our schools, rotting our kids teeth and making them clinically obese.

Profits and costs

11 Dec 07 14:27

It shouldn't be too difficult for the contractor to generate 'significant revenue' from the contract. After all, they could be repackaging content generated at public expense and available to them for free, whilst charging the DH a fair wedge for the privilege. To be fair, it might be that some of the money will be used to enable Choices to pay its way rather than maintaining the current parasitic model. But it would be nice if someone from the DH could clarify the expected breakdown of costs from this 60-80M.

Who is the data owner for NHS Choices?

14 Dec 07 07:37

Presumably DH rather than the successful bidder will be the data owner for the new Choices site? So your postcode, email and what ever else you choose to submit will be owned by the government rather than Dr F, Microsoft or who ever? Or will it be the other way round? And which am I least unhappy about?

And presumably the government rather than the private sector will own any IP created by all that tax payer investment? Except of course for content created by third parties like patient groups.... or will DH want to own that too?