A further key stage in the national procurement for Integrated Care Records Services (ICRS) was reached on Friday when firms that had made the shortlist to become Local Service Providers (LSPs) were notified by the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS.
Ninety-nine firms submitted outline applications to become LSPs by March with the list whittled down to 22 prospective LSPs by April. No official announcement of the shortlist has yet been made, and the letter sent to firms from the NPfIT notifying them whether they had made the cut once again demands strict commercial confidentiality.
Laurence Harrison from the IT trade body Intellect’s health group, told E-Health Insider: “Intellect has consistently said that the shortlists should be made public so we can ensure that potential sub-contractors have a fair opportunity to be involved in the NPfIT.”
Through a range of industry contacts E-Health Insider has been able to piece together an unofficial shortlist of the would be LSPs. However, given the difficulties in getting authoritative confirmations this list should not be considered definitive and be treated with caution.
At the time of going to press there were indications that the shortlist of LSPs may be extended beyond eleven, with the national programmne understood to be in discussions with one consortium about possible inclusion, potentially led by an alternative prime contractor.
The unofficial shortlist for LSPs includes:
- Accenture/Siemens/Microsoft
- BT/Perot
- Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
- Cerner/SchlumbergerSema/Serco/HP/TATA Consultancy Services
- Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC)
- Electronic Data Systems (EDS)/iSOFT/Microsoft
- Fujitsu/PricewaterhouseCoopers/TATA Consultancy Services
- IBM/Cerner/ATOS KPMG Consulting
- Lockheed Martin UK Systems/Hewlett Packard
- Patient First Alliance Consortium – Jarvis/SAIC
- SchlumbergerSema
E-Health Insider would welcome the opportunity to correct any omissions that the list above may contain. E-mail: editor@e-health-media.com.
Just as significant as those that made it onto the shortlist are the firms understood not to have been chosen. Two that have apparently not made the cut are consortia led by Wipro and McKesson/Capita. If confirmed, the omission of McKesson, one of the world’s largest health IT firms, would be a major surprise in the line-up of bidders to become LSPs.
Significantly, only one of the shortlisted consortia, that led by Cerner, is actually primed by a dedicated health IT firm. The majority of the consortia are led by heavyweight international technology and consulting firms, possessing varying degrees of experience in health.
In terms of electronic record system application vendors the biggest winners at this stage appear to be iSOFT and Cerner, which are both involved in a number of the shortlisted consortia. IDX is also understood to be bid as the core ICRS solution in a number of the LSP consotia.
All shortlisted LSPs are due to meet with NHS IT Director General, Richard Granger, and his team on 7 August in Leeds for a plenary meeting and series of one-to-one meetings. A maximum of four personnel from each bidding consortia will be allowed to attend.
An executive from one supplier who will be at the meeting, told E-Health Insider: “He [Richard Granger] needs to look them in the whites of their eyes and ask, ‘Are you serious about doing this?’”
In a further development the NPfIT has asked each prospective LSP to re-submit their ‘cluster’ preferences – which of the five English regions they wish to bid for. This is understood to be due to the limited number of bidders for the first wave clusters, in London and the North East, due to the extremely tight deadlines.
The re-submitted lists of cluster preferences had to be in by 5 August, with a cluster shortlist expected to follow shortly. The delay means that dates for bidders to present to first wave clusters and the subsequent 20-plus days of system demonstration and evaluation have been pushed back from the dates originally planned in mid-August.