England's NHS Connecting for Health completes final contract for
PACS
7 September 2005
NHS Connecting for Health, the agency running England's National
Programme for IT (NPfIT), announced today that it has agreed the final
arrangements that will see picture archiving and communications Systems
(PACS) rolled out across England' National Health Service.
Accenture, the company given the contract for rolling out the project in
the North East and East of England regions, has contracted with Agfa and HSS
for the supply of PACS and Radiology Information System (RIS) technology
respectively.
Similar agreements are already in place with NHS Connecting for Health’s
other three Local Service Providers (see below). The contractual
arrangements had been delayed by an unsuccessful bidder, Fuji, which failed
in its challenge to the procurement process in the courts.
Today’s announcement means that, in time, nearly all images used in the
NHS in England will be stored and transmitted and viewed digitally.
NHS Connecting for Health says it has already delivered PACS to three NHS
trusts and nearly 150,000 digital images are already being stored.
Dr Robin Kantor, Consultant Radiologist at the Hillingdon and Mount Vernon
Hospitals Trust, which has recently implemented NHS Connecting for Health
PACS said: "We operate on two sites, which are eight miles apart. One of the
greatest benefits of PACS for us as clinicians is that we are now able to
instantly access images from either site, regardless of where we are. This
has meant that I can report on images taken at the Hillingdon site, even
when I’m at Mt Vernon.
Richard Granger, Director General of NHS IT said: “I was disappointed
that delay was inflicted on the NHS and our patients by the failed legal
challenge. But I was delighted that the judge held that there had been a
correct and high quality procurement process. Today we have completed the
contractual jigsaw and I look forward to driving implementation so that PACS
becomes ubiquitous in English hospitals and the benefits are made real.”
Agfa originally lost out on the contracts when they were first awarded,
despite being the major supplier of PACS systems to UK hospitals at the
time. It is ironic that it now has two of the five regions and has a share
of contracts which, according to Computing (7 Sept, 2005), are worth
£235 million. Agfa replaced GE Medical in the two regions a year ago, with
no explanation from NPfIT, which hid behind the excuse of commercial
confidentiality — the lack of openness has been a general complaint among
suppliers. All the contract winners have been effectively gagged by the
project and those who have not won do not dare criticise the project openly
for fear of damaging future business prospects.
The PACS contracts in the five regions of England's National Programme
for IT are:
- London — Phillips and Isoft subcontractors to BT
- Southern — GE and HSS subcontractors to Fujitsu;
- North West and West Midlands — ComMedica and Kodak sub-contractor to
CSC
- Eastern — Agfa and HSS subcontractors to Accenture
- North East — Agfa and HSS subcontractors to Accenture.
The NHS trusts already with PACS under NHS Connecting for Health are:
- Hillingdon Hospital NHS Trust
- West Dorset Hospitals NHS Trust
- Salisbury Health Care NHS Trust.
For more information on NHS Connecting for Health see:
www.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk
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