IT supplier walks out on NHS

Channel 4 News understands this was because the contractor, Fujitsu, believed changes requested to the service were unviable at the price the NHS offered.

The multibillion pound scheme to put every patient in England's medical records onto a linked computer system is, at £12.7 billion, the largest civilian IT project in the world. It has suffered repeated blows: critcised for delays and fears that the personal details of patients might not be secure.

Fujitsu is the prime contractor for the south of England, responsible for 13 million records at a cost over 10 years of £896 million. It is also is one of the largest contractors for government IT projects and is among the front runners to roll out the government's controversial identity card scheme.

Connecting for Health, the government agency responsible, wished to have greater flexibility in the delivery of services. It wanted, for example, to be able to adapt software for primary care trusts with transient populations - such as Cornwall.

But Fujitsu, Channel 4 News understands, believed that without more money it would not be able to produce a viable product and that it would be more financially viable for the company to walk away.

Connecting for Health has now issued a termination notice to Fujitsu which might cost the contractor up to £300m..

In a leaked letter to NHS Primary Care Trust Chief Executives, the Chief Information Officer of Connecting for Health Gordon Hextall said: "Since we began the Contract Reset process in July 2007, the NHS together with the Southern Programme for IT and NHS Connecting for Health has been working with Fujitsu Services Ltd, the Local Service Provider (LSP) for the South of England, to agree revisions to the contract.

"Regrettably and despite best efforts by all parties, it has not been possible to reach an agreement on the core contract that is acceptable to all parties. Work has already started on joint planning for the continuing core contractual commitments and continuation of live services.

He says Fujitsu will continue to work with the NHS to fulfil any outstanding obligations of the contract: "We are working co-operatively and constructively with Fujitsu Services and the NHS to review the overall arrangements for providing systems to the sites that have not yet gone live with Cerner Millennium."

Connecting for Health said in a statement : "NHS Connecting for Health has to continue to protect the interests of the taxpayer and preserve the basis of contracts which ensure payment on delivery."

This is not the first time a service provider has quit the National NHS IT scheme. In 2006, Accenture paid £63m to lose responsibility for the north and east of England.

Connecting for Health will now look for a new service provider for the south. It is widely expected to be taken over by BT, who are running the scheme in London and utilise the same software as Fujitsu.

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