The government has confirmed that Accenture has given up
its existing contract with the NHS to supply systems, and will pay
£63m compensation to NHS Connecting for Health.
NHS Connecting for Health, which runs the IT modernisation
programme in the NHS, said the bulk of Accenture’s work would be
transferred to CSC, which supplies services in north-west
England.
“Accenture and CSC have announced a change of local service
provider for delivery of the NHS National Programme for IT in the
North East and Eastern cluster areas,” Connecting for Health
announced.
“Accenture will transfer responsibility for delivery of its
obligations within the National Programme for IT to CSC in these
clusters by 8 January 2007.”
Accenture is to retain responsibility for delivering Picture
Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), said Connecting for
Health.
CSC will continue to fulfil its contract to provide services to
the North West and West Midlands cluster areas.
Connecting for Health said, “The changes are presaged by NHS
Connecting for Health and its suppliers’ ongoing desire to ensure
that delivery of new systems is as rapid as is practicable within
existing costs.”
The value of the contract to CSC, for the nine years remaining on
the 10-year Accenture contract will be the same, based on the
original £1.97bn contract awarded to Accenture.
Accenture will retain only £110m of the £173m it has already
been paid by the NHS.
Richard Lobley, head of the government practice of PIPC, a
global project management consultancy, questioned whether it was
appropriate to transfer Accenture’s contracts in this way.
“The contract has completely changed from the original
specification, “ he said, adding, “losing a project’s major
supplier should automatically trigger a comprehensive review.”