The NHS and
Fujitsu, the main supplier
of centrally chosen systems to hospitals in the south of England,
are expected to sign a Memorandum of Understanding as part of
renegotiations of a £896m contract signed in January 2004.
The two sides were expected to have concluded talks at the end
of March, with the result that Fujitsu would either quit its
10-year contract on the
NHS's National Programme for IT, or sign a renegotiated
"contract reset".
Computer Weekly has learned that the contract reset has not yet
been signed and the two sides are to enter into a new Memorandum of
Understanding for 90 days.
A previous memorandum of understanding was signed in July 2007
and expired on 31 January this year, with the result that the two
sides reverted to the obsolete original contract.
The new MoU may allow trusts to resume NPfIT plans which were
put on hold because of uncertainties during the contract reset.
The MoU will expire at around the time the Department of Health
announces the results of investigations by two reviews into the
NHS. In 2007 the Health Secretary asked
Lord Darzi to conduct a "once in a generation review" of the
NHS, which is due to be published in June 2008.
Lord Darzi has said that "more work is now needed to ensure that
the Connecting for Health programme delivers real clinical benefits
and I will be considering in the second stage of my review how best
to achieve this."
There is a second review of the NPfIT by Mathew Swindells,
acting chief information officer for the Department of Health. He
is working on an NHS "Informatics Review" with NHS chief executive
David Nicholson, and Hugh Taylor, permanent secretary at the
Department of Health.
>> See
Tony
Collins' IT projects blog