Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has procured a new patient-focused intranet and internet solution for £725,000, with the aim of reducing digital deprivation for patients.
The contract, awarded to Made Purple Limited, is designed to offer patients the tools to learn new skills, research their medical needs, and locate information on the trust and CQC reports. The trust highlights the importance of this in improving patient experience and supporting their journey.
Recently, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICB’s Digital Inclusion Delivery Framework outlined a “bold and unified vision” for tackling digital inclusion, based around five themes: connectivity and access to devices and data; digital accessibility and information literacy; workforce digital skills and confidence; partnerships; and digital inclusion knowledge and expertise.
The framework includes details on tackling digital accessibility and information literacy, looking to collaboration with expert partners on developing workforce expertise in delivering accessible health information, the ICB explains. Opportunities will be explored to extend public understanding of where to find trustworthy health information, access barriers such as language and vision will be looked at for how they relate to people’s experiences of digital, and the range of digital applications the public is expected to use for health and care purposes will be simplified and reduced.
Wider trend: Health tech procurement
NHS England has published two pipeline notices indicating upcoming opportunities for digital delivery partners to support its urgent and emergency care agenda, and to provide DevOps services for NHS England Directorates. The first notice, which seeks a digital delivery partner to provide DevOps services into a variety of NHS Directorates, is expected to run from the end of September 2026 for a total of two years. The total value is anticipated to be £19million excluding VAT.
NHS England has also awarded a contract with a value of up to £160 million to IBM as a strategic delivery partner for the future of the NHS App. “Following the completion of a competitive procurement process and due governance, IBM has been formally appointed as a strategic delivery partner as we continue to develop secure, reliable and user-centred pathways and services at scale,” NHSE states. The contract is due to begin on 1 May 2026, ending on 31 March 2028.
Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust has awarded a ten-year EPR contract with a value of £52 million to Epic, taking the trust up to 2036. The trust’s board in its January meeting covered the board assurance framework, noting issues with IT infrastructure, digital maturity, and technical debt. “Lewisham and Greenwich NHS has had a phased roll out over several years of its existing EPR system which has left the trust with a partially deployed EPR for acute services and a separate community EPR with only 80 percent of our clinical systems integrated and linked to the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Patient Master Index,” it stated.
