Health IT supplier McKesson HBOC has been dropped from a
£30m contract at one of Scotland's flagship public finance
initiative hospitals.
The contract between Mc-Kesson and the trust that operates the
Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was terminated earlier this month, five
years into a 13-year agreement. The NHS said the supplier had
received no payment for its work over the five years.
When the contract was signed in 1999, trust chief executive
Allister Stewart said the project would deliver the "the most
innovative hospital information project in Scotland".
The initial contract was intended to provide a complete hospital
information system (HIS) by 2004, with the supplier delivering key
elements of the system during the intervening years. The contract
also included the provision of network and application support and
helpdesks. It was scrapped without a fully working HIS system being
delivered.
A joint statement from the trust and McKesson said, "Changing IT
infrastructure in the UK has culminated in a situation which means
it is no longer feasible to realise the vision we jointly shared
for the HIS."
NHS staff that were transferred to McKesson will now be transferred
back to the trust, which plans to build its own patient record
system. The trust may use some elements put in place by McKesson,
including parts of the Medtrak application McKesson ordered from
supplier Trak.
Tola Sargeant, an analyst at Ovum Holway, said it would be unusual
for a supplier to receive no payment for work over five years, even
if the system failed.