Pennine Care set to have Paris

EHealth Insider understands that Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust is on the verge of awarding a contract to Civica for its clinical information system, Paris.

The trust, which was due to be the mental health ‘early adopter’ for CSC’s Lorenzo system, pulled out in May last year, and subsequently joined the Northwest clinical information systems framework procurement.

This is being led by NHS Shared Business Services on behalf of seven mental health trusts in the region that are looking for replacement IT systems.

EHI understands that the trust has agreed in principle to implement Paris across all of its clinical services.

The deal is expected to be finalised by the end of September, and is almost certain to lead to Lorenzo being turned off at its first, key early adopter NHS Bury, which Pennine Care absorbed in April 2011.

EHI reported in March that a contract notice award indicated that four systems suppliers had been chosen for the framework deal – Ascribe, Civica, CSE Healthcare, and Strand Technology.

Pennine Care then ran a mini-competition for a ‘fit for purpose’ solution. The organisations involved in the deal – the trust, NHS Shared Business Services and Civica - were not in a position to comment on the system chosen.

The trust withdrew from the National Programme for IT in the NHS early adopter programme despite spending £3.2m and three years preparing for Lorenzo.

The decision threw negotiations between CSC and the Department of Health over a new local service provider deal for the NME into turmoil.

The latest ‘standstill’ agreement between the company and the DH runs out today [31 August 2012] and EHI has been told that negotiations over a new deal are going “down to the wire”; with an announcement expected over the weekend.

However, a new deal has looked increasingly likely over the past few weeks, as CSC first announced that it had been paid for three early adopters, and an EHI investigation then uncovered the names of a number of trusts still interested in taking Lorenzo.

After Pennine Care pulled out, Humber NHS Foundation Trust became the early adopter for the mental health sector, and appears pleased with the system.

A recent board paper indicates that it is looking to move to business as usual and become a ‘first of type’ adopter for additional modules, including day care and advanced bed management.

Another mental health trust, Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, has also had numerous board-level discussions about taking the system, and looks set to commit to it.