COMPANY NEWS
ECMC receives £35m funding
American IT giant CSC, one of the final two main contractors to the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), has told its investors that it might lose more than the £943m it has put into the project.
In a new filing to the US Securi- ties and Exchange Commission, it said negotiations with the DH had broken down and it now expects a write-down of its investment.
The experimental cancer medi- cine centres (ECMC) network has been awarded £35m fund- ing for the next five years to fa- cilitate clinical trials for cancer patients.
This network provides new
treatment options for patients for whom traditional therapies have been unsuccessful. The ECMC has
supported over
600 early phase cancer studies since its launch in 2006.
Jointly funded by Cancer Re- search UK, the National Insti- tute for Health Research (NIHR) in England and the Depart- ments of Health in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the network consists of 18 virtual centres.
Professor Dame Sally Davies, chief medical officer and chief scientific adviser at the DH in England, said: “These centres will continue to play a crucial role in helping to find new treat- ments for people suffering from cancer.
Dr Joanna Reynolds, Cancer Research UK’s director of cen- tres, said: “The ECMC network plays a vital role in delivering high quality early phase cancer research, which has raised the UK’s status in the field interna- tionally.
“Funding has underpinned the development of some of the most promising and innovative new cancer drugs, which are already on the path to becom- ing established treatments for future cancer patients.”
NHS West Kent Primary Care Trust has bought a new business intelligence and analytics system on behalf of the emerging Maid- stone & Malling Clinical Commis- sioning Group (CCG).
The consortium chose the Me- deAnalytics product, Clinical Commissioner, over the PCT’s incumbent health information sys- tem.
The company says it will provide GPs and other stakeholders with- in the PCT and CCG with great- er, more immediate, insight into charges they are given by hos- pitals for individual patient care, enabling them to match these with their own records, then query, ac- cept or reject the charges if there is a discrepancy. In doing so, Clin- ical Commissioner will help moni-
tor utilisation and ensure accurate payment for services, saving the Trusts money and improving effi- ciency across local health econo- mies.
Dr Thomas Reichhelm, deputy chair and performance lead at the Maidstone & Malling consortium, said: “With our previous HIS, we felt encumbered by the lack of di- rect input we had to the system.
“As a result, there was a discon- nect between the accuracy and timeliness of the secondary and primary care data we received. Getting the insight we needed to improve our financial manage- ment and clinical healthcare path- ways, was a cumbersome and time-consuming process – and as a result, there was very little buy-in from GPs across the region.”
The firm said it had been told by the DH that the May 2011 memo- randum of understanding to re- duce the scope and value of its contract would not be approved.
It said: “As a result of the circum-
stances described above, CSC has concluded, as of the date of this filing, that it will be required to recognise a material impairment of its net investment in the contract in the third quarter of fiscal year 2012.”
The implementation of iSoft’s Lor- enzo system, now owned by CSC, has been repeatedly delayed and is only in place at a few trusts.
The DH said it is still in discus- sions with CSC and is determined to ensure the NHS gets access to value-for-money solutions that work. Trusts are instead buying electronic patient records systems independently.
Managed services contract
IT services provider 2e2 has added more London-based NHS organisations to its man- aged services platform.
In a series of contracts worth £4m, Haringey Community Services and NHS North Cen- tral London Cluster (the com- missioning arms of Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington PCTs) will join the original members (Camden PCT, Camden & Islington NHS Foundation Trust and Islington PCT) to create one of the larg- est managed shared services offerings in the UK.
NTAC office launch
The NHS Technology Adoption Centre (NTAC) in Manchester held an office launch at its new premises in early January, at- tended by guests from the NHS and industry, NICE, the Asso- ciation of British Health Care Industries, The British In Vitro Diagnostics Association, York Health Economics Consortium, academic health science cen- tres, SHA Innovation staff, the Department of Health, and cli- nicians.
New cancer equipment
The Daisy Appeal to improve treatment and research into cancer and heart disease for people in Hull and East York- shire helped find funds to buy a Biograph mCT from Siemens Healthcare, which will be in- stalled along with a cyclotron at the purpose built Medical Research Centre at Castle Hill Hospital, part of Hull & East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. It should be operational by spring 2013.
Data storage deal
St Helens & Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust in Mer- seyside, the first in the UK to move to a purely digital patient records system, has installed two EMC Symmetrix VMAX systems as part of a new five- year plan to overhaul its data storage infrastructure.
national health executive Jan/Feb 12 | 13
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