CSC’s NHS IT business suffered a significant setback last week as it emerged that a key ‘early adopter’ of the iSOFT patient record software (Lorenzo) that CSC is deploying under the National Programme for IT in the NHS (NPfIT) has decided to pull out of NPfIT and explore its options on the open market. The Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust is the final one of four ‘early adopter’ sites that CSC needs to go live with Lorenzo in order to trigger an important NPfIT milestone payment and meet the Department of Health’s conditions for staying part of the programme. The news therefore has considerable implications for CSC, which is in the process of buying application vendor iSOFT to bolster its healthcare business (see CSC to acquire iSOFT).
The decision appears to have taken CSC by surprise despite the fact that the Pennine Care Trust had delayed the rollout of Lorenzo several times in the past. The mental health care provider had originally been due to go live with Lorenzo in November 2009, but that deadline and subsequent ones were repeatedly missed, the latest being in February this year. Last time we spoke to CSC’s NHS team they said the delays related to tailoring the software for mental health (a different environment from acute or community care, where Lorenzo has already been deployed by other early adopters). It would seem CSC’s efforts to make the application work for mental health have failed to persuade the Pennine Care Trust to take the final plunge.
CSC will now be waiting with baited breath to see whether the DoH sticks to its word and uses this milestone failure as justification for curtailing its c£3bn NPfIT local service provider contracts. If the NHS were to take the decision to cancel the contracts completely – and perhaps replace them with a procurement that offers limited local choice as in the South of England (see for example NHS IT: ‘Acute’ ASCC procurement gets the go-ahead) – the financial consequences for CSC/iSOFT could be considerable and we wouldn’t be surprised to see CSC rethink its bid for iSOFT as a result. One possible compromise for DoH would be to leave CSC deploying systems to the acute and primary care sectors but offer mental health trusts local choice, perhaps by running a procurement through the Additional Supply Capability and Capacity (ASCC) framework or similar. Either of these scenarios would be welcome news for the likes of CSE Healthcare Systems, which has successfully deployed its RiO community and mental health patient record application in London and the South of England as a subcontractor to LSP BT. However, according to reports on industry newsletter e-Health Insider, the DoH is now looking for a replacement mental health trust to become an early adopter of Lorenzo suggesting CSC could be about to get another 'final' chance to deliver on the NPfIT promise.