Seventeen suppliers sign GPSoC Lot 3

Seventeen suppliers have signed up to provide cross care-setting interoperability services as part of Lot 3 of the GP Systems of Choice contract.

The final supplier, Orion Health, signed with the Health and Social Care Information Centre today joining BT, Cerner, Emis, Healthcare Gateway, Health Intelligence, INPS, BMJ Informatica, Insight Direct, InterSystems, Microtest, OLM Systems, PCTI, Quicksilva, Servelec, Stalis and United Health.

These 17 have been chosen from an original 52 applicants.

The GPSoC framework funds IT systems for 75% of GP practices and provides a “shop window” for services on offer to practices and other health providers.

Lot 3 of the contract enables organisations to procure services that allow interoperation between systems used in GP practices and other care settings.

GPs can begin ordering from Lot 3 straight away with details about services offered available in an online catalogue.

Services will be funded by local organisations via a call-off agreement and they will be able to negotiate some of the contract terms relating to delivery of the services, such as service management and implementation provisions.

Martin Warden, GPSoC programme director at the HSCIC, described the contract signings as an "exciting milestone”.

“It marks the conclusion of the final part of the GPSoC procurement for three new frameworks,” he said.

"The purpose of Lot 3 is to facilitate integration between primary care IT systems and those used outside of the practice and I'm confident that the wider NHS will greatly benefit from the services due to become available under this framework."

Emis said it will offer portals and an Electronic Patient Record Viewer as well as business consultancy and order communications to customers under the new contract.

Chief executive Chris Spencer said the framework will make it easier for GPs and CCGs to access the wide range of services available to join up healthcare in every setting.

Stalis managing director Andrew Meiner said the company is looking forward to talking to practices and CCGs about procuring its CareInform vendor-neutral data repository service.

Seventeen suppliers are on Lot 1 of the GPSoC framework, signed in March 2014, which provides central funding for core clinical systems, along with a range of additional services such as document management and patient records access.

Thirty suppliers were signed up to Lot 2 of the GPSoC contract last November, which focuses on support services including office hardware, medical devices, training and consultancy.