New ASCC procurements promised for South

Tags: ASCC DH Information iS NPfIT South

03 Nov 2009

Christine Connelly says the NHS will run “a series of procurements utilising the ASCC framework in January 2010” to provide systems for trusts in the South of England.

The new procurements are expected to cover patient administration systems and a broad range of clinical and departmental systems.

News of the planned procurements came in a letter sent by the Department of Health chief information officer and director general of informatics to suppliers listed in the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity (ASCC) framework last Friday.

Connelly’s letter invites suppliers to a demonstration event on 24 November, saying this will be an opportunity to demonstrate products to inform procurements that will begin in January. The ASCC deals have been in place since May 2008.

“The event is essential to inform demand and improve market awareness of the clinical applications that are available in the communities, child health and acute sectors in advance of a series of procurements utilising the ASCC framework in January 2010,” says Connelly’s letter.

The DH CIO says suppliers will have to show they have current, fit for purpose products. Who the audience will be is not made clear.

Following the event, Connelly says the plan is to run joint or collaborative procurements, involving groups of trusts seeking a the same product or solution.

“We anticipate that any procurements will result in deployments at multiple trusts and suppliers will be required to demonstrate that they have the necessary operational capacity and financial standing to deliver this scope during the procurement process,” says Connelly’s letter.

Connelly also sets out a series of criteria that suppliers must meet, as well as being listed under the relevant ASCC category – the precondition of an invitation.

These are based on the application being currently in clinical use “in a modern health system with similar characteristics to the NHS”; “the application has a future development plan in place”; “has functionality appropriate to the care setting”; and satisfies integration requirements “with a) national systems, b) departmental systems, and c) systems/processes in other care settings”.

The 24 November event appears to have been thrown together at extremely short notice. The letter, sent on 30 October, gives suppliers a 4 November deadline by which to respond. Similarly, the London venue is unspecified, as is the audience for the products on show.

Despite these uncertainties, the news appears to set out the beginnings of a roadmap for those trusts not covered by the BT contract extension for the South, signed in April, which covered the eight existing Cerner sites plus four more.

Many trusts in the South of England have been left in IT limbo since the termination of Fujitsu’s local service provider deal in April 2008.

A handful of trusts in the South have been actively exploring going it alone through the ASCC procurement route, but this has not been an easy or attractive option for trusts to follow individually.

The moves on ASCC come amid a sudden flurry of activity from the DH. In recent weeks the DH has also been pushing interoperability, through its toolkit; and has published its success criteria for evaluating the two remaining LSP systems: Millennium and Lorenzo.

Jon Hoeksma

DH announces ‘app store’ style toolkit (28 Apr 2009) (1)
Toolkit to nail interoperability - Jones (29 Oct 2009) (10)

Readers Comments

Is this the best approach?

03 Nov 09 16:49

Throw something together in a hurry and regret it for years.

Hospital systems are very complicated to configure and get in place, there are companies out there who can deliver a good solution. However if they now win an order for a group of Trusts where are the staff coming from? These companies make money by running a tight ship with a good solution – they won’t be able to ramp up quick enough.

Would Christine be better off contacting all of the English Acute Trusts and see what systems work and what do not work (her staff could do this in a couple of days), talk to the companies concerned and get them to explain how they would deliver (who are there partners are etc).

Come on some common sense please.

How about choosing the best system(s) first?

03 Nov 09 20:58

Again, I'm worried about the focus on capability to deliver rather than what is being delivered ("..will be required to demonstrate that they have the necessary operational capacity and financial standing to deliver this scope during the procurement process")

Not again!!..How about,

Step 1. Let's check out e.g. 3 systems in each 'departmental' area that are proven to meet user requirements from a functional viewpoint. Let's agree what these systems are.

Step 2 - Let the Trust(s) choose a system from the choosen 3 based on fitness for purpose for that specific deployment.

Step 3 - Let the CSC's, Logicas, BT's etc compete on price for deployment of the chosen system for each project. (God knows what these guys bring to the party apart from rhetoric and additional cost..)

Clinical input - my @rse!

06 Nov 09 09:17

This invitation was extended to clinical leads - who will be unable to attend with such short notice.

It's back to the bad onld days, I'm afraid.

Clinical Leads only invited to 24/11 bash?

07 Nov 09 13:55

Please tell me you're joking.

You mean that the only "audience" invited to the "market awareness" event on 24th November which is to inform the South's forthcoming ASCC procurement activities will be ...clinical leads...???

As Poster No 3 puts it, the chances of their availability at such short notice is questionable, but even on the assumption that they all turned up (whoever "they" are), what is it that they are expected to assess or evaluate? And to whom will their findings be reported?

Perhaps it's just me, but I'm deeply suspicious; a hastily put-togther "market awareness event" at which ASCC Framework Contract holders in a number of defined ASCC categories - but why only those categories isn't explained - are given three weeks' notice and invited to "...exhibit/demonstrate..." on a choice of size of "stand" at a venue in London yet to be specified, and which "stand" will be provided with "...2 x 13 amp power sockets..." seems absurd in relation to the potential size of ASCC Contract(s) which might be awarded in the South.

Surely it's blindingly obvious that this "market awareness event" can't possibly have any vailidity in relation to any decisions which might be taken as a result of it, and especially if the target audience will be limited to "clinical leads" without any remit to report.