Rotherham: SHA tried to block new system

Brian James, chief executive of Rotherham foundation trust, said the north west SHA was unwilling to let it spend £30m over 10 years on upgrading its ICT with systems outside the National Programme for IT (NPfIT). "We only got them to relax their position when we said it was an interim system," he told the Smart Healthcare Live conference on 16 June 2010. "It's an interim system, for about 10 to 15 years. We managed to get away with it, I think." Rotherham has chosen Meditech to provide the software, the first phase of which will go live on 30 October, although James said NPfIT may delay this through its slow processes in approving systems to be connected to its national systems. But he added that this will not affect the project's second phase, planned for 2011-12. He said that the trust has been using a McKesson system for more than 25 years, which he said was "creaking at the seams" in 2004 when the decision was taken to replace it. But there was no clarity about when NPfIT's Lorenzo software would be available, or whether it would be fit for purpose. "It was conceived in the early 2000s," said James of iSoft's software. "We also had ambitions to deliver a step change in performance." James says that Rotherham was blocked from discussions with NPfIT or with BT, which is supplying hospitals in London with Cerner Millennium. "We were told, we couldn't do that," he said, and was threatened with having to pay for a NPfIT system even if it didn't take it. But he added: "We didn't want to be left to the vagueries of whether the National Programme could deliver." The trust looked overseas, wanting an integrated system able to move it to paperless operation and interoperability with local GPs. On the latter, it is working with SystmOne, which operates systems used by half of its local family doctors. As part of the project it has installed new wired and wireless networks, both capable of running at 10Gbps, two new data centres and new personal computers. Rotherham awarded the deal to Meditech in March 2009, which will be the US firm's first UK installation, as it could provide almost all the functionality required, although radiology and pathology will use separate systems. It is working with Filetek on delivery and Dell (formerly Perot) on configuration of screens. The supplier has had to make significant adaptations to its software to work with clinical coding language Snomed, but James said this has paid off as the US is moving to much greater use of the language. James said that the trust will have to retrain 2,500 staff to use the new system before it goes live. It plans to use the move as a chance to dump data of questionable quality, by moving only a minimal amount to the new system but retaining the rest for two years to see if it is required. He added that it would be very difficult now to find the money for a similar project. "It's one of the reasons we started two or three years ago," he told the audience.