Connecting for Health, the Department of Health body responsible for the NHS IT programme, is reported to have warned Computer Sciences Corporation and iSoft that it is prepared to step in and take over development of iSoft’s Lorenzo patient record software if the companies cannot resolve differences.
Today’s Financial Times newspaper cites DH sources as saying, a team has already been put on standby to take over if required, following a meeting reported to have taken place between the two companies and CfH boss Richard Granger on Monday.
According to the FT CfH is now so alarmed at the potential for a dispute between CSC and iSoft to derail the whole programme that it is now threatening to exercise its full step-in rights on the development of Lorenzo. The official line from CfH last week was that the future of iSoft was a matter for its prime contractor CSC to sort out.
Lorenzo is the next generation clinical software that iSoft is contracted to deliver for CSC to install in 60% of the English NHS as part of the NHS IT programme. The troubled software programme is already over two years late with development still underway. A leaked report last February, co-authored by CSC and Accenture, highlighted serious problems with the way the software was being developed.
In the past 12 months CSC has taken an increasingly hands-on role in the development of its sub-contractors software in India, with a team of 100 CSC personnel now believed to be working on the project.
CSC and iSoft are at loggerheads after CSC blocked the takeover of iSoft by Australia’s IBA Health and yesterday indicated it is pondering a bid of its own. iSoft on Monday threatened to take legal action against CSC, its biggest customer, only to put this on hold yesterday and restart discussions.
The FT also reports that while iSoft has said CSC’s block on its acquisition by IBA Health came out of the blue CSC had "repeatedly warned iSoft during May that it had growing reservations about the deal."
One possible outcome suggested is that the IBA takeover may yet go ahead, but with CSC ring-fencing iSoft’s development of Lorenzo within the new company.