THE CHALLENGE
Procurement Programme
Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust (BHT), in common with other London and Southern Trusts, had been provided with patient administration/clinical systems (PAS/EPR) for both acute and community services via the Department of Health (DH) managed and funded Local Service Provider (LSP) contract. BHT had implemented relatively little acute functionality, choosing instead to supplement the LSP solution with other locally deployed systems (e.g. Evolve).
During 2012-13, DH communicated that it did not intend neither extending the LSP contract, nor providing additional funding, beyond the expiry date of 31 October 2015. Whilst other trusts made preparations for procurement and exit, a number of external factors meant that BHT was unable to devote senior management focus until early in 2014. By the time of the February 2014 Trust Board meeting, BHT was the only Acute Trust in the south of England that had not commenced its re-procurement process.
Initial analysis showed that remaining with the incumbent provider was not viable: BT had opted not to offer its acute solution after contract expiry; and its community solution Rio, whilst available via framework contract, was 30% more expensive than the same solution direct from the Rio software provider.
It was also clear, that the combined timeline of the procurement and transition projects meant that all options needed accelerated delivery if the October 2015 exit deadline was to be met.
The trust needed to:
