Value of Accenture PACS deals questioned

Dr. Neelam Dugar

The chair of the Royal College of Radiologists' imaging informatics group has written to MP Richard Bacon asking him to investigate the way the end of the national picture archiving and communications contracts is being handled.

Dr Neelam Dugar, who is also clinical PACS lead at Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has raised concerns with Bacon that trusts are being given incentives to extend contracts that she does not believe are value for money.

She told eHealth Insider that Accenture, the local service provider for PACS in the North East and East, has written to her trust offering a 17% discount if it immediately signs a contract extension until 2016. The existing contracts end in 2013.

She also told EHI that she understands that 20 of the 31 trusts in the North East have signed up to similar extensions, and that NHS Connecting for Health has written to trusts saying there is a business case for doing so.

However, Dr Dugar said her trust had looked at the PACS deal that might be offered by another supplier and concluded that it would be cheaper for it to continue with its current LSP contract until 2013 and then move to a new contract.

She also pointed out that trusts that stuck with Accenture would be left with a further three years’ of data to migrate, if they subsequently decided to change PACS provider.

“I am disappointed as a taxpayer that most trusts have actually signed,” Dugar says in a letter to Bacon, who has been a doughty critic of the national programme.

However, in a statement Accenture said: "We are working closely with CfH and individual trusts so that we can offer trusts a continued PACS service that represents good value for money.

"Each trust has its own robust processes for assessing value for money and deciding whether or not to accept our proposal, as the requirements and situation of each trust differ.

"The feedback we have had from the majority of trusts we have approached has been very positive. In all cases these proposals will provide financial savings to the trusts and we are confident that they are getting good value-for-money."

Dr Dugar said she was “impressed” by Bacon’s performance at a recent Commons’ public accounts committee hearing at which he quizzed LSP and DH officials about the national programme’s detailed care record system contracts.

The meeting followed a critical National Audit Office report on the deals that Bacon helped to instigate.

Richard Bacon’s office told eHealth Insider the MP was away on parliamentary business until early next month, but would be scrutinising Dr Dugar’s concerns upon his return.