Surrey and Sussex picks Philips PACS

Philips has been picked as the preferred supplier for PACS, RIS and vendor neutral archiving by the Surrey and Sussex collaborative procurement of six NHS trusts.

The Sussex and Surrey collaborative procurement is the first in NHS South to announce a preferred bidder and award contracts since the decision by the Department of Health to discontinue national contracts for PACS and RIS beyond June 2013.

Philips Healthcare will provide its IntelliSpace PACS in partnership with Acuo, which will provide vendor neutral archiving technology, and HSS which will provide its latest Rowthorne RIS.

Currently five of the six trusts have a GE PACS and HSS RIS. East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust has an Agfa PACS, bought just before the roll-out of PACS and RIS systems as part of the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

The six trusts taking part in the collaborative procurement are: East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, Queen Victoria Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, West Sussex Hospitals NHS Trust, Royal Surrey Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Ashford and St Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

The trusts are planning to buy a managed service for PACS/RIS and VNA. Each trust will have their own local systems plus access to a central vendor neutral central data repository.

The central depository will allow images to be viewed and used throughout Sussex and Surrey.

The new contract will provide significant savings on the existing CSC local service provider PACS deal and provide additional functionality.

East Sussex Healthcare is the named authority, but each trust will have individual contract. Contract award is expected in July and all the trusts should be implemented by March 2013, ahead of the expiry of CSC deal with Accenture in June.

Dr Graham Dodge, consultant radiologist and principal lead consultant (imaging) at Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, and senior responsible owner for the PACS/RIS replacement programme, said the deal was for more than a PACS system.

“It will support the vision to move the NHS closer towards the instantaneous provision of quality images and patient data whenever and wherever they are needed, seamlessly following patient pathways and ensuring accurate and timely diagnosis and reporting," he said.

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust had planned to take part but pulled out at an early stage and is understood to be pursuing a replacement for its current LSP-provided PACS/RIS in line with its ongoing Cerner Millennium EPR strategy.