Bacon fries up more trouble for NHS IT

The central allegation is that the supplier has ended up with an enormous mark-up – possibly as much as £446m or 87% over the real cost. The MP acknowledges that DoH was caught short when Fujitsu walked away from NPfIT,but that it may have ended up paying well over the odds to paper over the cracks.

 

The move seems to be yet another death-knell for the troubled Programme, which most commentators expect is facing either imminent closure or severe cutback.

 

The MP in question, Tory backbencher Richard Bacon, MP for South Norfolk, a close follower of the Programme has written to the head of the National Audit Office asking that it examines the contract and whether it represents value for money.

 

Bacon is reported to have said in his communication with the NAO that the contract – covering 25 installations of the RiO computerised care record system in mental health and community settings - may be only be worth a lot less than the contracted amount. 

 

His logic is that the alleged real cost to the NHS of a RiO implementation is only £500,000 and that "even at £1m for each [contracted] installation this would still only add up to £25m”.

 

Bacon then adds in other possible real costs.

 

He tots up BT taking on support for the seven acute trusts that installed Cerner Millennium before Fujitsu left the programme in 2008 plus putting that system into three extra 'greenfield' sites as £35m over seven years then adds on £30m for new Cerner installations at each the three new sites were £10m.

 

He finally adds in £10m for the transfer of work from Fujitsu’s data centre to BT sites - arriving at a rough total of £74m worth of work.

 

But in his reported words, “The remaining £446 million is, in my mind, not accounted for, and so raises questions of the proper conduct of business and the proper use of public money.”

 

Bacon first wrote to NHS CIO Christine Connelly in March, questioning why such a large contract had been awarded to BT for “such a small amount of activity" and how it had been calculated as being value for money.

 

Now he is pressing the NAO to try and get a detailed breakdown of what the money is being spent on and to examine whether its value for taxpayer money.

 

"If nothing else it would be put to rest the concerns that many in the NHS are expressing over these extra payments,” he concludes.

 

As yet neither BT nor the NAO has responded publicly to Bacon's charges.