NHS England has confirmed a two-year extension worth up to £36 million for its national breast screening system (NBSS) IT software platform, which has been delivered by Hitachi Digital Services UK Limited since 2015. The extension means the contract will now run to 31 May 2027.
NHSE notes that the screening platform is “critical” to the provision of breast screening services, providing the ability to make bookings and onward referrals, with the notice highlighting the system is “extremely complex”. Justification for the new contract award is noted on the basis that there are no reasonable alternatives for the provision of this service.
With NBSS in use in over 70 different breast screening offices, NHSE also highlights the complex and time consuming nature of rolling out new releases, adding: “This new contract award (which is a restating of the previous contract) will provide service continuity while the future long term strategy for NBSS continues to be developed and subsequently implemented.”
Tech procurements from across the NHS
Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust has awarded a contract worth £572,000 to DrDoctor for the provision of a patient engagement portal. In a contract award notice published earlier this month, the trust shared details of the contract award, described as the “provision of services for patient engagement tools, consumables, transformation services”, made by direct award via G-Cloud 14 Lot 2 “after pre-established internal requirements were entered into the digital marketplace”.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust announced a contract award of £102,000 for a one-year deal to London-based Dr Julian Medical Group Ltd for Talking Therapies third party provision. The notice shares that the trust required an “innovative, efficient, and effective solution to support and enhance the delivery of Talking Therapies and associated Psychology services (Step 2, Step 3 and Step 3+)”, which would also offer “flexibility and responsiveness to changing needs and demands of the services and patients”.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde has awarded a £307,000 contract to the virtual care solution Doccla, for its remote management platform aimed at helping patients with long-term health conditions. The contract covers the installation of the Doccla virtual ward solution, which was chosen for its ability to offer remote support to patients and scalability capabilities which will reportedly help “manage the expansion of patient numbers”. It also integrates with the health board’s “cornerstone clinical systems” in use.
