PACS national framework agreement unveiled

Published: 2-Apr-2012

NHS Supply Chain to put in place simple procurement process for trusts


Just days after BBH revealed calls for improvements in PACS procurement among healthcare trusts across the UK, NHS Supply Chain has announced it is working on a new framework agreement.

With the support of the Department of Health (DH), the Royal College of Radiologists’ imaging informatics special interest group, NHS Connecting for Health (CfH), and the National Imaging Clinical Advisory Group (NICAG), it is developing a new procurement strategy for Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) and Radiology Information Systems (RIS). These solutions allow for all digitally-acquired patient examinations to be scheduled and stored.

Contracts let under the agreement would typically cover IT hardware and software, professional services, storage and hosting and, to complement this, CR readers and electronic transcriptional services will also be included.

Professor Erika Denton, the Government’s national clinical director for imaging, said: “It will be beneficial to have a single national framework for the procurement of PACS and RIS solutions.”

She added that it would help trusts when their current PACS and RIS contracts run out and following the disbanding of the NHS National Programme for IT. She said: “Following discussions between the DH and NHS Supply Chain it has been agreed that NHS Supply Chain will develop and implement the new national framework. This will provide further choice to trusts as the clock counts down to the end of the local service provider contracts for PACS and related services and as they consider their future service options.”

Dave Burns, senior buyer for NHS Supply Chain, said: “We all recognise the importance of creating an efficient and effective procurement solution for PACS and RIS replacements when existing contracts expire.”

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