MP queries BT’s £546 million NPfIT bill

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The NHS could be overpaying BT by more than £400 million for a National Programme for IT (NPfIT) contract, according to back-bench Conservative MP Richard Bacon.

As a member of the Public Accounts Committee, Bacon has penned a letter to the National Audit Office, the Government spending watchdog, to investigate a £546 million contract. He believes that a £100 million bill is nearer the mark.

The contract covered 25 installations of the RiO electronic patient record system in mental health and community settings.

In his letter, Bacon itemised the costing as he sees it. He wrote that the typical cost to the NHS of a single implementation is £500,000 but even allowing double that amount the total would still only come to £25 million.

The contract also covers support for three new Cerner Millennium installations and support of existing ones at the ‘Live8’ acute trusts, now actually seven following the withdrawal of Worthing Hospital. The contract was awarded to BT when Fujitsu quit the project in 2008.

Bacon pointed out: “If the generous sum of £1 million per year is allowed for support at each of the seven Cerner sites, the cost over five years for the seven sites would be £35 million.”

Allowing £10 million for the transfer of work from Fujitsu’s data centre, Bacon concluded: “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.”

The MP has asked for the official breakdown of the contracted work to be re-examined. He wants to ensure that BT was not taking advantage of the difficult position the NPfIT scheme found itself in when Fujitsu resigned.

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