Will the national programme pay for contestability?
Perhaps the most intriguing speculation to have emerged in recent weeks is the suggestion that iSOFT, triumphant in three of the four clusters contracts so far announced – the North East, North West and Eastern – is leveraging the economies of scale made possible by initial wins to offer a very low price for the whole of […]
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Granger repeats PACS warning
The head of the NHS’ £5bn IT modernisation programme has again warned suppliers of Picture Archiving and Storage Systems (PACS) to cut their prices, or be subjected to ‘radical surgery if they don’t come back with lower bids. In an interview with the Financial Times, NHS IT director-general repeated his warning, first reported by E-Health […]
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E-honours in the New Year list
Leading figures in e-government and the Internet are recognised in today’s New Year Honours. At the top of the pile, there are knighthoods for the inventor of the world wide web, Tim Berners-Lee, and chief executive of the Office for Government Commerce, Peter Gershon. The government’s e-envoy, Andrew Pinder, is awarded a CBE. […]
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Granger says final LSP contract will come when ‘right’
The final local service provider (LSP) contract for the South of England will be signed in the New Year, when suppliers have "responded to treatment", says NHS IT director-general Richard Granger. In a short interview with E-Health Insider on the day that two of the remaining three LSP contracts were signed Granger said he was […]
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Two LSP contracts announced, South delayed until 2004
The National Programme for IT this morning announced that CSC and Accenture are the winners of two of the three remaining local service provider (LSP) contracts, worth a total of £1,907m. The award of the final LSP contract, for the South of England, has been put back to January 2004 for unspecified reasons. A National […]
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NHS Evaluates Windows alternative
Sun Microsystems has announced that it has received notice from NHS IT director-general Richard Granger that its Java Desktop System will be evaluated for use in the NHS as a possible alternative to Microsoft’s Windows products. According to Sun Microsystems the evaluation could help bring an open, affordable and secure desktop solution to the NHS, […]
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Paying the price for success
As the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) procurements approach their climax the final few weeks of negotiations appear to have centred on the relentless push from the centre to drive down prices for systems, software and associated services. The challenge is to stretch to the limit the return on the £2.3 billion being invested nationally […]
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E-Health Insider – the first 100 issues
As the E-Health Insider newsletter celebrates the 100th edition, we take the opportunity to look back over highlights of two years coverage of e-health. December 2001 – Tablets within two years In EHI No 1 we reported on a Microsoft-Department of Health conference at which Bill Gates and Alan Milburn set out the vital role of […]
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Analysts speculate on LSP contract awards
A US market analyst report obtained by E-Health Insider predicts that clinical applications vendor Cerner will win two of the Local Service Provider (LSP) contracts about to be awarded by the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), with two more going to iSoft, and one to IDX. Overall the 11 November SunTrust Robinson Humphrey document, suggests that […]
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Gershon says NHS national programme is inherently ‘risky’
Peter Gershon, chief executive of the Treasury’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC) has described the National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS as inherently risky and ambitious. The comments came as part of his oral evidence to the powerful House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on purchasing and management of software licences in […]
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