All-Wales PACS roll-out gathers pace

The roll-out of the all-Wales Picture Archiving and Communications System is picking up pace, with two health boards now live with the system and another scheduled to implement it this summer.

A national framework for a managed PACS was awarded to Fujifilm by the NHS Wales Informatics Service in April last year.

Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board and Hywel Dda Health Board are now up and running with the system, while Cwm Taf Health Board should follow this summer.

The single contract with Fujifilm replaces 13 different contracts for PACS systems across Wales.

NWIS has stressed that one of the advantages of this national approach is that it should become easier for health boards to share images with each other.

The contract, which runs for seven years and is likely to be worth around £20m, includes a central archive facility to facilitate image sharing.

NWIS has estimated that the contract should generate efficiency savings of £15m over its lifetime, with a significant proportion of this sum coming from health boards no longer needing to transfer images by file transfer or CD.

When the deal was announced, health minister Lesley Griffiths said the all-Wales system would “realise the full benefits of PACS technology.”

“This is an excellent example of public service organisations working as one to deliver real benefits for the people of Wales,” he said that the time. “By working together through a common framework contract, significant savings can be achieved.”