'Four more years' for McKesson

Tags: A DH EPR McKesson NPfIT Paragon PAS UK

28 Jan 2010

The Department of Health is negotiating four year support deals for the 21 NHS hospital trusts running McKesson patient administration systems.

The current support deal, signed in 2006, is set to expire at the end of March. The DH had been planning to sign a further two-year extension, but is now negotiating for a four year deal, which would extend to 2014.

McKesson is also understood to be on the brink of taking the investment decision to anglicise its Paragon hospital information system for the NHS market.

The DH Informatics Directorate declined to comment, saying negotiations were ongoing. McKesson also declined to comment. Sources indicate the final deal is likely to “go to the wire” and is not expected to be completed until March.

The shift to a four year contract extension appears to suggest a lack of confidence in the ability of CSC, the local service provider for the North Midlands and East of England, to deliver replacement hospital systems before 2012.

The mounting delays in the delivery of Lorenzo by CSC have required repeated extensions to be added to the national support deal between NHS Connecting for Health and McKesson.

The National Programme for IT in the NHS originally planned to replace all McKesson sites with its chosen CRS products by 2008.

In 2006, CfH signed a deal with McKesson to extend support for the then-23 NHS trusts using TotalCare and Star to 2010, the new point by which NPfIT was to have been completed.

Since then, the NHS McKesson TotalCare and Star sites have in effect been left in limbo, with their ageing HISs supported but no longer being developed, and no line of product replacement on offer.

McKesson still has the second largest installed hospital base in the NHS. The company has blown hot and then cold about the possibility of bringing a new hospital information system to the UK market.

In a March 2009, McKesson’s then UK MD, Charmaine McDonald, told E-Health Insider the company was looking at adapting Paragon, marketed in the US as community hospital system, to the NHS hospital market.

EHI now understands that, after lengthy deliberation, McKesson has decided that it will re-enter the NHS hospital systems market.

Link: McKesson UK

Jon Hoeksma

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Readers Comments

How long?

28 Jan 10 14:57

It appears that the Department of Health has finally given up on Lorenzo.

Giving up on Lorenzo

28 Jan 10 21:38

....and about time too.

Not before time!

29 Jan 10 08:28

Didn't those with insight gave up on Lorenzo (and the wider NPfIT misadventure) some considerable time ago?

Post edited by EHI

What could possibly go wrong?

29 Jan 10 12:28

So, if McKesson have taken a decision to sell Paragon to the UK they'll be bringing an existing US system to the NHS and then anglicising it -- great, what could possibly go wrong?

Four more years?

29 Jan 10 14:46

Just wondering; has anybody checked out whether in relation to Public Contract Regulations (2006) it is lawful for DfH to "extend" the McKesson PAS contract further? In fact, I'm wondering whether it's lawful for CfH to do anything in this case because as far as I am aware, all the current existing McKesson PAS contracts have each Trust as the NHS principal, not CfH.

Contract Novations

29 Jan 10 16:28

If I recall correctly, when NPfIT was being set up, all Trusts were encouraged to put a notation clause in the contract to allow the locally owned contract to be transferred to NPfIT. Perhaps this is the case with McKesson.

What I wondered was whether these sites have been left with basic support and no development, has the PAS been updated for all the various fundamental changes that have come about over the years i.e. 18 weeks, Direct Booking. And if not, by extending for another four years will they remain that way for another four years, unless they do something locally?

Perhaps someone at one of the sites using this PAS could enlighten me.

Really!!!!??

29 Jan 10 22:31

So Paragon....

Paragon, the solution marketed in the US as a system for community and access hospitals upto 200 beds, but not for the big boys who get offered Horizon....really!!!!???

Paragon, the solution with no discernible PAS functionality useful to the NHS other than ADT and MPI (again how long did it take to get STAF to full functionality after initial install in Greenwich as an OE/RR system and when exactly did they decommission the ICL PAS?)....Really!!!???

Paragon the solution that competes acromoniously in the overlap with it's sister product HORIZON for investment and resources internally....really!!!???

Paragon, the solution with no real discernible advanced clinicals such as CPOE/e-prescribing or documentation despite promising for over 3 years...really!!!???

I just hope that McKesson's NHS customer sites, do their deep due diligence on what is real and what is powerpoint and promises.

For notation read novation?

01 Feb 10 09:52

Surely that's novation rather than notation??

Minor point

01 Feb 10 13:04

As dis-believeing and horrified you all seem to be at this story, what are the options?

"The shift to a four year contract extension appears to suggest a lack of confidence in the ability of CSC, the local service provider for the North Midlands and East of England, to deliver replacement hospital systems before 2012."

Are you all saying there is no need for this contingency because you all hand on heart whole heartedly believe CSC will have every Trust in the North West using Lorenzo within the next 2 years?

That's a roll out of more than 1 Trust a month.

There seems to be a lot of negativity and I told you so's but what other realistic options are there?

Maybe Paragon isn't the way forward but the extension of support for the current PAS's so Trusts are in a position where they can make a sensible decision rather than a panic-ed deployemnt.

Paragon is just McKesson trying to make money.