TPP SystmOne likely choice for prisons

Tags: CfH Choice CSC DH England iS London N3 South TPP Wales

12 May 2009

TPP’s SystmOne Prison looks likely to be chosen as the national clinical IT system for England’s prisons.

The Department of Health has commissioned NHS Connecting for Health to deliver a national clinical IT system for every prison in England and TPP’s SystmOne Prison has been selected as the preferred option.

The system is already being rolled out across the North, Midlands and East of England (NME) cluster, where around 50 prisons use SystmOne Prison.

CfH now hopes to extend availability to prisons in the South and London clusters via a contract with the CSC Alliance, the local service provider for the NME. Eight prisons in the South have independently procured SystmOne Prison.

A CfH spokesperson told EHI Primary Care: “We can confirm that we are considering extending the current roll-out of TPP SystmOne to prisons in the London and the South.

“This is subject to the appropriate approvals being gained and ongoing commercial discussions. No timescales for a possible roll-out within these areas can be provided at the moment."

The DH has set up a Prison Health IT (PHIT) programme with CfH, the Offender Health team at the DH and HM Prisons Service.

Its initial aims are to ensure every prison has an N3 connection, the necessary cabling and a national primary care clinical IT system. It also aims to deliver a shared record within HM Prison Service.

Delegates at a national stakeholder event in January heard that the programme covers more than 135 prisons in England, including all contracted out and public sector prisons, and is likely to extend to Wales pending further discussions. Special hospitals and immigration removal centres are out of scope.

Eve Roodhouse, CfH's programme manager for the PHIT, told the stakeholder meeting that the business case identified the preferred procurement option to be the extension of an existing contract with CSC Alliance to make SystmOne Prison available in London and the South.

She said the business case for extension was at final approval stage with the DH and commercial negotiations with CSC Alliance were continuing. She said nine prisons in the South had already expressed an interest in being early implementers.

Fiona Barr

Readers Comments

Has anyone analysed what is needed?

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

12 May 09 22:05

I'm getting totally confused about the medical care of prisoners - and the IT to support it!

My understanding was that in 2005, when prison medical care was transferred to the NHS (and passed to the individual PCTs which had prisons within their boundaries), CfH was asked to procure a prison IT system and, without tendering, selected TPP.

If that is the case, why is there any need to re-procure (again without tendering) now?

I would agree that a single *mandated* IT system is essential - but it is only one of the components necessary for even adequate medical care for a population with medical needs different to those of the general civilian population.

The MOD - with a population equally dissimilar in totally different ways and equally mobile (prisoners get transferred frequently and at short notice) spent two years analysing their needs and whole MOD medical services design and the IT needed to support this - and did not procure any IT system which was not integrated into the whole service design - and requirements.

**When will the government, DH, NHS, PCTs - and even CfH begin to realise that IT supports service delivery - and does not dictate it?!?**

As it is, *any* system that could make records available on transfer would be an improvement on the lack of system prisons experience at the moment - but without integrated plans, protocols, pathways - and structured record keeping (the MOD model) I am not sure that it will improve medical care of prisoners.

Er - doen't contracts of this size have to be put out to tender under EU regulations?

Welsh Prisons

13 May 09 20:45

The article states that the programme 'is likely to extend to Wales pending further discussions.' Although the number of Welsh prisons is small compared to England, offenders are frequently moved between English and Welsh prisons, so a shared record and system is vital. I sincerely hope that the same system is made available to Welsh prisons.

Roll-over

16 May 09 23:30

The 8 prisons in the South, contracted directly with TPP, and subject to competitive tender. This came long before the NME roll-out. I'm not sure what the LSP tier adds but cost and bureocracy, but presumably the business case will address this.

Because its important that CfH finally recognise the financial constraints that the rest of us have always attempted to work within. So far they seem to have escalated costs, and emancipated value in most of what has been delivered.

Prisons in the South - and communication

maryhawking@tigers.demon.co.uk

18 May 09 13:21

"The 8 prisons in the South, contracted directly with TPP, and subject to competitive tender." Do the 8 prisons have any organisational links e.g. common protocols for mental health and chronic disease management and use the same templates? Presumably the 8 prisons lie in different PCTs - so was this a single contract or independent tendering for each prison? IT is only part of the problem - and it would be really useful to know whether having a single IT system (essential) has been used to improve prisoner health care even in the small group of prisons.