£80m IT services tender issued

Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust has issued an IT services tender worth £50 – £80m over five years.

A notice issued in the Official Journal of the European Union says the trust is looking for ICT infrastructure services to support 5,200 end users and 5,500 staff across 150 sites.

This includes; service management; data networks and management; videoconferencing and telephony, infrastructure and ICT training.

The trust may extend the services contract to cover clinical or information systems, business applications, integration and portals and digital service user engagement, such as telehealth, the OJEU notice says.

A trust spokesperson said the tender was for a service to deliver the infrastructure component of a five-year ICT strategic programme of work .

This programme would help all staff work more effectively and efficiently whilst improving patient care as well as “ensuring confidentiality and the ability to deliver the right information to the right people at the right time”.

“Just as we are constantly reviewing how we provide care in order to provide high quality services, so too we are reviewing our ICT provision to ensure we have the right infrastructure to support the way our staff work now and in the future,” the spokesperson said.

“We are looking to bring in tried and tested technologies and managed services which have long been standard in other industry sectors.

“A robust and flexible communication and information platform will enable our staff to do the best job they can, in turn enabling them to deliver the best possible care for our patients.”

The successful bidder must be able to increase service provision to up to 15,000 users over the life of the contract and the trust may extend the contract for up to two years.

“The bidder will be aware of the continuing changes that are occurring both in technology, and within the NHS at large,” the OJEU notice says.

“The bidder must be able to flex its service arrangements to take into account these changes in technology and organisational structure that will inevitably occur during the term of the contract.

Requests to participate must be received by 25 March.