Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has awarded a contract to Cerner worth £11m to remotely host its Millennium electronic patient record system.
The contract was awarded without a procurement process and information about it was published in an OJEU transparency notice. The trust says only Cerner has the technical capabilities required to host the system.
“The remote hosting service requires hardware sizing specification and capacity management specification throughout the life of the contract in order for changes, enhancements and upgrades to the application and sub system architecture to be made. This specification can only be provided by contractor,” says the notice.
“Only [the] contractor possesses or ever could possess the necessary technical knowledge of the co-developed solution correctly to configure and performance-tune the application, sub system and hardware components.”
The trust implemented the Cerner Millennium electronic patient record independently of the National Programme for IT in May 2010.
As part of the remote hosting service, Cerner will install and maintain hardware to support the Millennium EPR, provide data centre facilities, and managed telecommunication lines.
“The trust is purchasing, substantially, a remote hosting service from contractor to support the on-going operation of its electronic patient care system which contractor already provides to the trust under a separate contract,” says the notice.