With the shortlist for LSPs announced this week, barely a year after the procurement process for the NPfIT began, Richard Granger, NHS IT director-general, has reiterated that the final decision on LSP contract awards will be made centrally.
In an interview with E-Health Insider, Mr Granger, confirmed that the decisions on award of the five LSP contracts, due from this October, will be made by the centre: “That is a national decision.”
He added: “The OJEC [Official Journal of the European Commission] notice was published by the Department of Health, and the procurement process is being run against a set of national standards.”
Though many in the NHS and supplier community had been working on the basis that the decisions would be made centrally, some local NHS IT directors have expressed disquiet at the limited input they will have in the process.
Mr Granger stated that for local NHS organisations the task is to focus on needs and requirements: “The most important input of local organisations is around requirements and ensuring they have clearly established what products they want.”
With the cluster shortlists now announced “people in the NHS now have the opportunity to meet directly with suppliers,” said Mr Granger. However, E-Health Insider has since been told that the time allocated for each LSP to present their solution to NHS staff in first wave clusters has been cut from four days to just one, suggesting that presentations will not be detailed.
The National Programme stresses that clinicians and other NHS staff have been consulted on specifications and requirements from the outset. “Most of the input into the OBS (Output Based Specification) for ICRS (Integrated Care Record Service) has come from clinicians working full time in the NHS,” stated Mr Granger.
He also revealed that plans will be announced in the next few of weeks to massively extend the numbers of people involved in shaping the programme. “It’s about stepping up from 100s of people into 1,000s and 10,000s,” explained the NHS IT boss.
Professor Peter Hutton, head of clinical engagement with the national programme, added: “In two to three weeks there will be an announcement on a route in for almost everyone in the NHS to be involved. From that point on we will be taking a lot more note of individual user requirements.”
But given the tight procurement timescales, with LSP contracts for the two first wave clusters – London and North East – are due to be awarded by October, and the remaining three by the end of the calendar year, the wider engagement plan looks certain to follow rather than inform the award of LSP contracts. This could leave sceptics in the NHS viewing the whole exercise as something of a fait accompli.
The next step for shortlisted LSPs, meanwhile, will to have their preferred solutions rigorously tested, to see if they actually do what they say on the tin – the so-called ‘sand pit’ stage. “We will shortly be taking their software solutions and putting them into a test environment,” confirmed Mr Granger. Similar testing has already been completed for ebooking, and is about to begin for the three bidders, BT, IBM and Lockheed Martin, on the national data spine.
Later this month bidders will receive the second Output Based Specification (OBS2) for ICRS, setting out requirements in more detail. Mr Granger stressed further iterations of the document would continue to be developed even after contract award. A separate document detailing the local situation in each cluster is also set to be issued.
Asked whether he thought firms that did not make it onto the shortlist might still have a role to play in delivering the programme, the NHS IT director-general said: “Yes I do, though there are clearly reasons why they did not make it onto the shortlist.”
He added that some of the unsuccessful bidders and sub-contractors are already suppliers to the NHS, with valuable skills, systems and experience. “I would expect to see them involved.” However, Mr Granger made clear he did not expect to see dramatic changes in the line-up of the proffered solutions offered by each LSP. “We won’t have wholesale reconfiguration, but sub-components could be strengthened or in some cases changed.”
He also revealed that developments were in hand to help ensure that IT is firmly on the agenda of every trust, SHA and PCT board. “It’s a board issue, an ongoing requirement, it doesn’t disappear.” Five regional implementation directors have recently been appointed by the national programme to provide a link between the centre, cluster leads and local NHS chief executives.
Plans are also underway to develop governance agreements, between the national programme, the Department of Health, SHA clusters and individual SHAs, to help ensure the national programme is delivered, added Mr Granger: “It’s a high-level, secretary of state level, agenda.”