£240m tech fund 2 raided by Treasury

The second round of NHS England's technology fund has been raided by the Treasury to shift money towards dealing with A&E pressures in the run up to the general election.

EHI News has been told that £90m was cut from the £240m Integrated Digital Care Fund after heated negotiations with the Treasury before Christmas.

Sources say that the entire fund had been squarely in Treasury sights, with only a determined rearguard action led by Beverley Bryant, NHS England’s director of strategic technology and systems, preventing its complete loss.

However, the mounting delays in providing NHS trusts any information about what is happening to the fund or the status of their bids, as detailed by an exclusive EHI News survey last week,  indicate that the situation is still to be finalised.

Announcements on awards have been pending since November. Initial letters have already gone out to unsuccessful bidders, but up to 240 trust bids are thought to be still awaiting news.

The first tranche of the money must be spent by the end of March 2015 –  little more than 10 weeks away.

With the fund now thought to be cut by a third, tough choices must be made about which projects will be axed from the funding list, with larger projects appearing particularly vulnerable.

Several trust IT directors have told EHI News that the repeated delays mean they must now decide whether to abandon plans based on securing tech fund bids, if they are to have a chance of retaining local matching funds.

Senior sources within NHS England speak of mounting frustration at the uncertainty surrounding the tech fund, which has involved significant preparation and evaluation work from trusts, suppliers and NHS England since March 2014.