The Department of Health has reached an agreement with supplier CSC over the Lorenzo clinical management and patient administration systems fiasco which, it says, will save it as much as £1bn.
The agreement was formally reached on Friday 31 August, but only announced today.
Lorenzo had been part of the failed National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the National Health Service, which was supposed to modernise the NHS's IT infrastructure, but went spectacularly over budget instead – while failing to deliver all of the many benefits initially promised.
The agreement will give local hospitals and NHS organisations the power to make their own decisions about whether to implement Lorenzo or not. Many NHS organisations claim to have implemented systems that are as good as, or better than, Lorenzo, at a much lower cost.
"Under this agreement CSC will continue to have the opportunity to support the NHS Information and Communications Technology infrastructure through deployment of our ground-breaking Lorenzo base product solutions, now rigorously tested and approved for wide-scale deployment across NHS," claimed CSC president and CEO Mike Lawrie.
He added: "We are already seeing strong demand from NHS trusts that are confident our solutions will bring the safety and efficiency gains required by a modern NHS."
The term of the agreement extends through July 2016. The agreement includes full mutual releases of all claims between the parties through the date of the agreement, according to CSC.
"Under the deal, the NHS will not be subject to minimum volume commitments which were part of the original NPfIT local service provider contracts. These controversial clauses had committed the Department of Health to a minimum spend with CSC, and could have led to the DoH paying for deployments of Lorenzo that did not actually happen," said journalist and public-sector IT blogger Tony Collins.
However, he added that the details of the deal revealed so far raised a number of questions. "One question remaining, though, is whether trusts that have indicated they will take Lorenzo will be contractually committed to taking it. There's a big difference between an intention to deploy and signing a contract to deploy it. Has the government made a promise to CSC to deploy Lorenzo [only] at those trusts that have indicated a willingness to deploy it?" asked Collins.
Collins also called for the terms of the deal to be published in the name of open government – but didn't think they would be.
Nevertheless, the Department of Health and ministers of state that weren't reshuffled today expressed their satisfaction with the deal. "By dismantling the National Programme for IT, this new agreement will save taxpayers over £1bn which will be reinvested in patient care and front line services... By re-shaping this contract, delays will be avoided in delivering much-needed IT systems to the NHS, and will ensure the investment made to date is not wasted," said Health Minister Simon Burns.
Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude suggested that it formed part of a plan to devolve more decision-making power in the NHS: "This deal represents the government's commitment to restoring local control over decision-making and enabling greater choice for NHS organisations – ending the top-down approach and centralised control of the past."
