Clinical IT supplier Microtest has been acquired by venture firm PUBLIC.
The acquisition supports PUBLIC’s healthcare strategy to deliver intuitive software to medical practitioners, the company said. It’s not known how much the acquisition was worth.
Chris Netherton, Microtest’s managing director, said: “I am extremely proud of what the team at Microtest has achieved over the years.
“In PUBLIC we have found an ambitious new partner who can rapidly take the company to the next stage of its journey.”
PUBLIC’s co-founder, Alexander de Carvalho, added: “We are excited at the opportunity to combine Microtest’s well-established capabilities and PUBLIC’s mission-driven approach to new healthcare technologies.
“I look forward to working closely with Microtest’s GP customers, staff and partners and to collaborating closely with NHS and other public bodies to deliver our digital joint ambitions.”
Cornwall-based Microtest has worked closely with the NHS to provide primary care software in England, Scotland and Wales.
In October last year the company lost its contract with NHS Wales following “unacceptable delays” in rolling out its clinical software to GPs.
Microtest had been contracted to deliver its clinical systems to Welsh GPs over a four-year period after being awarded onto Wales’s primary care IT framework in 2018.
At the time it threw the next stages of the NHS Wales GP IT framework into uncertainty. Microtest had been selected as one of two clinical systems suppliers for NHS Wales NWIS on behalf of the General Medical Services (GMS) IM&T Programme Board and Health Boards.
Microtest was also one of 69 successful suppliers awarded contracts under NHS Digital’s GP IT Futures framework for England.
Under the framework, GP systems would be available for procurement under the so-called Digital Buying Catalogue.
Successful supplier systems were due to become available from January 2020, following the phase-out of the existing GP Systems of Choice (GPSoC) framework in December.