Changes in the NHS National Programme for IT – is the ASCC likely to come into its own?

In the last few weeks the environment for future information systems and the NHS appears to have changed to address some of the challenges experienced so far in making the national programme a reality in large Acute Trusts, where introducing new systems does not happen easily.

The NHS Health Informatics Review, led by the Department of Health’s interim chief information officer, Matthew Swindells and published last week, reiterated the goal of the National Programme to deliver integrated care records systems – whilst emphasising the need for pragmatism in the delivery of technology enabled benefits to the NHS, in a reasonable timescale, through the use of proven, integrated best-of-breed solutions - at least on an interim basis until the National Programme can deliver better alternatives.

So does the recent signalling of the move away from the LSP contracts suggest an increased use of ASCC or other procurement routes, to underpin this pragmatism? Has the LSP implementation process to date proved to be far too difficult ? With the difficulties experienced by some major suppliers, who have subsequently ‘handed back the keys’, it would not be difficult to assume that the challenge has vexed many people with experience of large scale programme delivery. Local focus on a smaller, simpler, and incremental implementation process based on existing, proven systems seems to be a much better way to move the programme forward with less risk.

The reality is that a combination of factors have contributed to where the NHS in England currently finds itself:

• The original concept was not clear in where the boundaries lie. The scope of the contracts varied and the NHS locally was not well informed about how they would be affected.
• Many, possibly most Acute Trusts, had little understanding of the scope of the new systems and services. Many trusts have had mature but fragmented information systems that have evolved over many years and delivered great clinical benefit. The integration challenge to fully realise the benefits of these disparate systems is difficult, but can be managed locally.
• The LSPs have not had a product that is able to deliver a solution quickly and easily. The main PAS suppliers available through the current LSPs (iSOFT and Cerner) have had some interesting but in some cases less functionally rich systems, which have had to go through a process of development to be suitable for the current requirements. This has introduced significant delays and big issues about the ease with which legacy systems can be integrated.
• The federal nature of the NHS makes imposition of new systems very difficult with each trust being different in the services it delivers and the systems it uses. The LSP have not been able to deliver a common vanilla solution.

The opening up of the clinical systems market is potentially good news for trusts as they are able to work with a wider range of suppliers, and the capacity issues faced by LSPs may not be so critical.

Methods has been successful in the recent award of ASCC contracts. Along with our sub-contractors on ASCC - BridgeForward and SeeBeyond, (others widely used include Ensemble from Intersystems and Rhapsody), we are able to provide a range of clinical integration services to trusts. We have a detailed understanding of the issues faced by each trust, and in particular the path that is required to be able to take them to a position where they can implement new PAS solutions and organise their IS applications infrastructures to simplify and reduce costs of integration in future as the national offerings develop in maturity . Whilst we don’t suggest that this is easy, we believe we have the knowledge and experience to be able to deliver a working integrated environment.

To learn more about how we are able to assist you, please contact Peter Rowlins at peter.rowlins@methods.co.uk or on 0207 240 1121