BT advanced payments to be deducted

Health minister Ben Bradshaw has said that all of the £92.8m advanced payment made to BT for work in the South will be deducted from the amount paid upon delivery of the systems it is contracted to provide.

In a parliamentary written answer, dated 7 May, Bradshaw said all of the sum will be deducted from the final amount to be paid to BT.

In its full year results due out tomorrow BT is expected to announce write downs in its Global Services Division, the arm responsible for the NHS contracts, running into hundreds of millions of pounds. Without the advance payment agreed with the DH the picture would have been even worse.

In April it was revealed the DH had made a payment to BT of £92.8m, excluding VAT, “as working capital to aid with infrastructure, planning and development work in advance of the deployment of systems and services”.

BT has also been paid an additional £183,000, excluding VAT, relating to work undertaken by the company with NHS organisations in the south of England as a consequence of termination of the contract with Fujitsu.

The Government declined to name the cost of the additional payments that will be made to BT as a result of the two Contract Change Notices (CCNs) last month, that resulted in the appointment of BT as the preferred supplier to the existing eight live Cerner sites in the South.

BT also entered into a commitment to additional deployments to four further Cerner acute sites, and 25 RiO mental health and community health sites.

Bradshaw said: “Disclosure of the value of the CCNs at this stage would potentially compromise the Department’s position in any future procurement for further services in the South, and in consequence prejudice the commercial interests of the Department, and of the taxpayer.”