BT on track to get southern Cerner trusts

15 Jul 2008

British Telecom is on track to take over responsibility of the eight southern NHS trusts running Cerner Millennium from Fujitsu, with an agreement now likely to be reached in August.

At the launch of the NHS Informatics Review last week Gordon Hextall, acting head of NHS Connecting for Health, told E-Health Insider that negotiations were proceeding with BT to take over the Cerner trusts in the South.

The CfH boss told EHI: “We are talking to BT currently and hope to complete talks next month. It is for BT to then say ‘we are content to do the work at the price’.”

Hextall added: “The aim is to do the whole thing so that by November we have Fujitsu transition out.” He gave no details on who would then be responsible for the trusts in the south currently without a local service provider (LSP).

The need for a replacement prime contractor for the NHS National Programme for IT in the south of England was triggered by Fujitu’s departure as LSP for the south on 28 May after almost a year of contract renegotiations.

Hextall confirmed that Fujitsu may now, however, keep responsibility for picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) – following the pattern set by Accenture two years ago when it exited the NPfIT programme. “Fujitsu have indicated that they now want to keep PACS,” he said any decision would be subject to price and negotiations.

Hextall told the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee on 16 July that the agency was in talks with the London local service provider, saying that it would be July before any takeover arrangements could be finalised.

Jon Hoeksma

Reader's Comments

No surprise

15 Jul 08 12:18

Given that the eight sites have already gone through the agonies of testing, implementing and (on occasions) working with the Millennium system, it would be utter madness to consider repeating that to take an alternative system.

Providing the BT version works, then it could be an 'upgrade' to the existing functionality, and would hopefully not require significant re-training or local configuration. If the BT flavour is shown to be wanting, then it would probably spell the end of Cerner in the UK.

Time will tell whether the early implementers have made the right decision in the longterm. Others may have an opportunity to take Lorenzo, Alert or others from the ASCC catalogue, but they are equally unproven in the UK.

Interesting times ahead

Life beyond the live sites?

15 Jul 08 22:42

If BT take responsibility for the 8(?) live Cerner sites, what does this mean for the next wave. It appears that Bath were very close to going live with Cerner, & need to replace their current system, but were "snookered" by commercial discussions. Does anyone know if BT are looking beyond the current 8 sites?

BT recruiting

17 Jul 08 04:40

BT had a large advert in a Sunday newspaper a week or so ago for jobs in health (implementation, programme mgt etc.) in the "south". So presumably they had a good idea that taking over as the LSP for the south was on the cards.

Life outside Acute

netta.hollings@ic.nhs.uk

18 Jul 08 11:07

What about Mental Health and Community services and anything else outside Acute Trusts?

BT & Fujitsu - same usage of Cerner

18 Jul 08 14:09

Quote: Providing the BT version works, then it could be an 'upgrade' to the existing functionality, and would hopefully not require significant re-training or local configuration. If the BT flavour is shown to be wanting, then it would probably spell the end of Cerner in the UK. Un Quote

Both Fujitsu & BT are using Cerner Millennium, neither wrote it or can sustain it.

The version 0 in use in most of London is exactly the same in use by Fujitsus eight pioneers in the South of England. (insider knowledge here)

The only different package is the Royal free, who have jumped in on Release 1 - exactly the same one that Fujitsu were supposed to have been delivering NOW to the southern Health Trusts who did all the troubleshooting for them.

The major difference was fujitsu just acted as puppert master for the southern implementation of cerners Millennium. BT however invloved cerner directly and were able to troubleshoot and implement changes much more efficiently and timely.

Fujitsu will be remembered by us as being very rigid and slow to implement change.

As a member of a southern health trust; we wlcome the arrival of BT as a partner who can complete this program by managing the Cerner Implementation.

BTW, Haringey bought their Cerner software direct before NPfIT and are the only implementation of release 2 in the UK

POSTING 5

19 Jul 08 10:42

Nice insider information - pity it's wrong.

re Posting 5

21 Jul 08 12:03

Thank you for the snide remark - my 6 year old couldn't have done it better - however there are some who would like to know what is going on.

As one of the Trusts faced with getting the BT version of Millinium in the future and having just got over the hangover from the "No more Fijitsu" party I would rearly like to know what the future holds.

Since the whole project started there has been a vail of secracy, miss-information and little "birdy told me"'s.

Could somone just lay it out in black and white so we can just get on and put it together. People work so much better when they have a defined goal - even if it is an unatractive one.