Crown Commercial Service has confirmed the chosen bidders to feature on a major deal for NHS and social care bodies to create digital services and put data to better use

A total of 22 suppliers have won a place on the Digital Capability for Health 2 framework – double the number of firms that feature on the current version of the agreement.

The deal represents a “pan-public sector agreement for the provision of application development and management services for public health and social care programmes”, according to a newly published commercial notice.

While the framework is not divided into lots, it is intended to address five distinct areas, the notice adds.

The first of these is the provision of development and upgrade work for existing services. The second and third areas respectively address: support for the initial discovery and alpha phases of digital projects; and the subsequent beta and live phases.

The fourth specified area is the end-to-end delivery of projects from initial research and design, through to development and delivery. The final category covered by the framework is “data collection, data processing and analysis and management of data and services”.

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Across these five areas, the Crown Commercial Service – which is managing the framework – expects about £1.4bn, inclusive of VAT, to be spent over the agreement’s three-year term. This represents a rise of almost half a billion pounds compared with the estimated £960m worth of the first iteration of Digital Capability for Health arrangement. That deal expires in July after an extended four-and-a-half-year lifespan.

The incumbent deal was initially awarded to 12 companies in January 2021, but the supplier base has since been reduced by one after Accenture acquired one of the other firms featured on the agreement: Infinity Works Consulting.

The second iteration of the health and care digital deal features twice as many providers, with 22 bidders securing a spot.

This includes all but one of the 11 on the first version, with only Capita not featured this time out. The 10 companies that are retained are: Accenture; Aire Logic; BJSS; Cognizant; Hippo Digital; IBM; Informed Solutions; Kainos; Mastek; and Netcompany.

The 12 new additions are: Atos; Birlasoft; Burendo; CACI; Capgemini; Caution Your Blast; Ernst & Young; Opencast Software; PwC;  Scott Logic; Softwire; and Thoughtworks.

The suppliers were picked from a total of 79 firms that bid for a spot on the framework, the commercial notice reveals.