US services supplier CSC, which has £3bn worth of NHS IT
contracts, has announced
strong year-end results, with net profits of $1.12bn [£710m]
for the 2009 financial year.
Its performance is in contrast to the
results for BT, another main NHS IT supplier, which has written
off hundreds of millions of pounds on its work as a local service
provider on the NHS's National Programme for IT [NPfIT]. CSC and BT
are the NPfIT's two remaining local service providers.
CSC's CEO Michael Laphen referred to the company's NHS contracts
when announcing the results.
He said that despite a challenging economic environment, the
company's achievements included "exceptional cash generation,
realisation of our full-year goal of at least a 25 basis points
margin rate improvement" and "successful execution and delivery of
the National Health Service milestones".
CSC is one of two local service providers to the NHS, the other
being BT. Its work for the NHS has included updates to legacy
systems, and supplying the
SystmOne
product for GPs. It is due to roll out the Lorenzo system which Guy
Hains, head of CSC's European Group, said is a
"fantastic" product.
CSC's turnover was $16.74bn [£10.6bn], up 1.5% over the 2008
financial year. Pre-tax profit margins improved slightly from 5.6%
to 5.7%. Fourth-quarter turnover was $4.11bn [£2.6bn], down 8.3% on
last year.
The company's share price of about $37 is down on this time last
year when it was about $47.