New NHS IT arrangements ‘to provide savings and flexibility’

The Department of Health has renegotiated its IT contract with CSC, supplier of the Lorenzo healthcare IT system, in a move designed to improve flexibility and efficiency for NHS bodies.

As part of its efforts to dismantle the controversial National Programme for IT, the government has agreed to scrap CSC's exclusive rights to provide clinical IT systems, allowing local hospitals and NHS organisations to make their own choices.

This is estimated to deliver savings of up to one billion pounds, which will go back into the NHS and would be enough to fund half a million extra knee and hip operations, and almost 15,000 additional doctors.

Lorenzo is currently being used by ten NHS organisations and will still be available as an option for eligible local NHS bodies, providing they can prove the system is a good option in terms of value for money.

Health minister Simon Burns said: "We've removed the restrictive, top-down, centralised approach and given the local NHS the power to make their own decisions about which IT systems they use."

The National Programme for IT was created under the previous Labour government in 2002, but has been assessed to not be fit for purpose by the Cabinet Office's Major Projects Authority.