IT news: Healthcare IT suppliers joined forces to support NHS trusts through healthcare reforms

Just days after the Department of Health announced a raft of measures to support IT procurement within the health service, a number of leading suppliers have joined together to provide a one-stop-shop for NHS trusts.

The One Health Alliance consists of key companies including Oracle, Clinical Solutions, Ardentia, Sunquest Information Systems, and IMS Maxims, who will collaborate to bring best-of-breed technologies to healthcare organisations, both in the public and private sectors.

The group will work together to share best practice and market intelligence as well as pro-actively offering newly-formed GP clinical commissioning groups an interoperable set of solutions to support them in improving efficiency and patient care.

It is this kind of openness that the NHS has been missing for some time

Tom Humphries, business manager at Clinical Solutions and a member of the One Health Alliance, said: “The suppliers in the alliance have been, and are being, carefully chosen to complement each other through their experience and expertise. While competition between suppliers is healthy, the group provides an informal discussion forum outside any specific procurement and looks at ways of working to benefit organisations.”

He said the move was particularly important as the NHS, particularly new commissioners within the primary care sector, have little or no experience of procuring IT systems.

“It is paramount they know that suppliers within the alliance are not only working to discover and address the needs of commissioners at this early stage in the reforms, but also that suppliers are willing to talk and work together for the greater good of the industry,” he added. “It is this kind of openness that the NHS has been missing for some time.”

While competition between suppliers is healthy, the group provides an informal discussion forum outside any specific procurement and looks at ways of working to benefit organisations

To promote debate and explore solutions, the alliance has started to invite frontline healthcare staff, including GPs, to discuss how the NHS reforms are affecting them and what they need from suppliers.

Dr Richard Fisher, a GP from Swindon, said: “The world in which GPs operate is very different to the commercial world. Not only was meeting with the One Health Alliance an opportunity to tell suppliers what GPs in my community need and have an interactive discussion about those requirements, but it also enabled me to see the commercial work close-up; something frontline staff rarely get the opportunity to do.”

The launch comes shortly after the Department of Health announced its own move to improve knowledge within NHS IT departments and speed up the procurement of systems.

As part of a joint initiative with eHealth Insider, the department will give NHS local commissioners and trusts free access to information on available systems and suppliers, providing detailed insight into all the options and applicable standards, as well as feedback from real users.

Katie Davis, managing director of informatics at the DH, said: “We are committed to providing the NHS with the insight it needs to take the right decision on sourcing systems in the future. By making our own core information on our use of IT available for others to add their own expert insight and value, we have made a major step forward in providing the necessary information, for free, to all NHS customers. Furthermore, we hope this transparency will send a clear signal to the supplier community that the NHS IT market is open for business.”