NHS IT leaders and industry experts have given a mixed reaction to the news that IDX is to be replaced as the clinical software provider for the South of England, with a widespread expectation that the change will lead to further delays in delivering new systems.
The prospects of improving on the current delivery schedule, already at least nine months late, appear bleak. One PCT IT director told EHI that he had already been advised that delays in his community would now be "up to 17 months rather than nine months".
A south west hospital IT director, added: "They talk officially about nine months delay. But I think it’s going to be at least 12 more months even for a very limited go live, and there is plenty of scope for further slippage."
Tola Sargeant, senior industry analyst with Ovum, told E-Health Insider that although in the short-term there were likely to be further delays in the South, Fujitsu’s replacement of IDX looked to be good news in the medium to long term.
"For Fujitsu it’s quite a positive move as they have gained control over the solution they will be taking forward," said Sargeant. Previously Fujitsu had been reliant on BT delivering a common solution based on IDX’s Carecast solution as a ‘common solution’ across both London and the South.
She added that if Cerner does, as anticipated, replace IDX it would instantly double the capacity to deliver across the two regions. "Cerner has a bunch of resources that they can get straight to work on developing a solution."
One NHS IT trust director in the South West told EHI that many of the problems and the delays in the South stemmed from the decision to effectively create one super-cluster out of the two biggest and most heavily populated regions of England.
According to an industry source the ‘common solution’ approach was pushed by NPfIT in order to slash the cost of the LSP contract for the South of England. He added that the change inevitably had an impact on the credibility of the national programme, which had awarded the original contract to Fujitsu bidding IDX, and which was meant to have assessed its ability to deliver.
"Do we really need another change at this stage?" he asked, pointing out that IDX was originally contracted to deliver its proven Lastword product, rather than its much newer Carecast solution.
Another well placed hospital IT director told EHI he and his clinical colleagues locally welcomed a possible switch to Cerner, as they had lost confidence in the anglicised version of IDX’s Carecast being developed as the ‘common solution’ for London and the South.
While it is widely expected that Fujitsu will sign a new deal with Cerner this is not a certainty yet. Sargeant said that the Kansas-based company, which failed to secure a deal for any of the five clusters in the original procurement, certainly appeared to be in a strong bargaining position. "They look to be in a stronger position than they were in the original procurement."
Sargeant also suggested that there may yet be further changes in suppliers. "I don’t think this is necessarily the last swap out we will see."