The largest deal by far to affect health IT in March was worth an estimated £200m over three years – although only a part of it has anything to do with IT. NHS Supply Chain, the outsourced health service trust supplier run by DHL, awarded its framework contract for computer consumables, stationery and other office products to Banner Business Services, Office Depot, Premier Business Papers and Supplies Team.
Supply Chain added that it has overhauled its online catalogue, NHS Cat, with the aim of making it easier and quicker to use. It is now available through the public internet, rather than the 'nww' network pages only available on health service networks.
Other awards announced during the month were of a more modest size, according to Kable's database of government IT deals. The Isle of Wight's primary care trust, working through Solent Supplies Team, awarded Data Swift Network Services, a firm based on the island, a £350,000 contract to supply IT support services to GPs around the island for four years.
Hertfordshire Primary Care Trust awarded a similar contract, for the support and maintenance of GPs' computer hardware and networks in west Hertfordshire, to Egton Medical Information Systems for an undisclosed amount.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals, the largest NHS trust in the UK, awarded Soliton IT a deal to supply, install and commission speech recognition software for radiology reporting across a number of its sites, again for an undisclosed amount. The speech recognition functionality will have to be linked to the trust's existing systems, and users will be able to operate it through voice commands.
Among the month's tender notices, Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Foundation Trust said it plans to spend around £225,000 on networks and cabling across more than 100 locations. Bedford Hospital Trust published a tender for a wireless data network, consisting of about 300 access points, costing between £150,000 and £200,000.
The news that BT will maintain the Cerner Millennium installations at eight acute trusts in the south of England emerged on 2 April 2009. NHS Connecting for Health was yet to provide full details at time of publication.
