Trade union Unite has called on the governmentto act quickly to save up to 700 jobs at risk at Fujitsu
following the termination of the firm's contract to supply IT to
health trusts in Southern England.
Fujitsu
announced that the jobs were at risk last week after
Connecting for Health terminated Fujitsu's £1.1bn contract
under the NHS £12.7bn National Programme for IT.
Peter Skyte, national officer at Unite, said a prolonged period
of negotiations could lead to Fujitsu making redundancies. Workers
threatened with redundancy could look for new jobs, leaving the NHS
short of IT professionals with the skills it needs for the
National Programme for IT, he warned.
"We want the government to make quick decision about the
replacement for Fujitsu. The people that have been working for
Fujitsu should be redeployed within Fujitsu or transferred to the
replacement supplier," he said. "We want to ensure that the workers
are retained and that the work done already was not in vain."
Fujitsu works alongside trusts in the South to help them
implement the NPfIT technologies. These include an IT help desk
system, a picture archiving system for X-rays and the care records
system supplied by Cerner.
Connecting for health, which runs the NHS NPfIT, said it expects
the Fujitsu staff to be retained by the replacement supplier.
"We have indicated to Fujitsu that where any service transfers
to another supplier, we expect
Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations
(TUPE) to apply and staff associated with that work would
transfer to that other supplier.
"Furthermore we have already agreed to bring together Fujitsu
and other suppliers working on delivery of the National Programme
for IT to assist in reducing the impact of the termination on
skilled IT staff," it said.
Phil Morris, European managing director at sourcing consultancy
Equaterra, said the most important health IT roles were in
governance. Local trusts have to continue with projects regardless
of developments emanating from the centre, he said.
One IT director at a Southern Trust said NHS IT staff had so far
covered for the work done by Fujitsu staff. He said his trust made
sure that it was not too reliant on Fujitsu skills.
"We kept it fifty-fifty and because the plans are already in
place we are carrying on until a replacement is found," he
added.
Accenture withdrew from contracts to deliver IT systems to the
health service in the Northeast and East of England in July last
year. The
contract was transferred to CSC along with the employees.
Skyte said he wished for a similar outcome with Fujitsu.