NHS says Lorenzo won’t be complete until 2016

North West Strategic Health Authority says it does not expect full installation of the strategic Lorenzo electronic patient record software until 2016, a year later the date set out in last week’s National Audit Office report.

A board paper from the SHA says a new contract between CfH/NHS and local service provider (LSP) CSC is due to be signed that will stretch out deployment dates into 2016.

First meant to be delivered at the end of 2004 Lorenzo is already running four years late. Last week’s NAO report on the NPfIT programme said delivery of the late-running software to NHS trusts is not exepcted to be completed until 2015. The NAO report said delivery by the end of 2015 would represent a four-to-five year delay.

However, the NAO report said repeated past delays raised questions over the latest roll-out timetable. “There is considerable uncertainty about when the care records system will be fully deployed and working across the country.”

The extent of this uncertainty is highlighted in the North West SHA paper. “Included within the Project Agreement (contract) is a revised plan for deployment of the LSP up to 2016,” states the SHA Board paper from May 2008.

The same paper goes on to state that the forthcoming Swindells Review of NHS informatics “is expected to give the NHS more flexibility to implement interim solutions where LSP offerings are not available or not fit for purpose.”

Under development by iSoft the Lorenzo software, installed by CSC, is the main care records service (CSR) software due to be delivered to three-fifths of the NHS in England under the £12.7 billion NHS IT programme.

The report warned the timeframe of current Lorenzo roll-out plans: three pilots in summer 2008, with full roll-out from autumn 2008, “may prove over-ambitious”.

One of the three pilots to be first to receive Lorenzo in a limited installation is due to be Morecombe Bay, which the North West SHA board paper says is due to happen on 16 June. “If Morecombe Bay maintains this date they will be the first deployment of Lorenzo in the country.”

Though the CSC/CfH contract reset which establishes the new dates, was due to have been signed by 6 May, E-Health Insider has learned this deadline has now passed unmet.

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NAO says care records delayed until 2015