Sheffield Teaching Hospitals launches £400m tender in search for new electronic patient record system

According to the tender notice, the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is searching for three suppliers to submit bids with a “comprehensive range of clinical and administrative” functions in an effort to procure a new EPR system.

Currently, the teaching trust uses a system called DXC Lorenzo which was installed in 2015 for a period of ten years up to December 2025 – but it has caused numerous problems and was found to have contributed to a £12m shortfall in income due to activity underperformance.

The successful bidder for the new EPR will have the contract for 10 years, with the potential to extend at the end of the contract.

The tender notice states: “The Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is out to tender for the supply, implementation and maintenance of an electronic patient record system.”

It adds: "The solution should provide a broad EPR across the main clinical and administrative departments of the hospitals. At its core should be a modern PAS including live bed state; enterprise wide, multi-disciplinary scheduling; and patient tracking including RTT and cancer tracking.

"The core system should include clinical functionality such as clinical documentation, workflow, ePMA and order communications as well as departmental systems such as A&E, theatres, ICU, LIMS and maternity. The solution should be extendable to cover the community services provided by the authority.”

In 2016, an Integrated Resource Report linked problems with the DXC Lorenzo technology with activity underperformance, but said it was “clear that the bigger issue is the operational impact of the new system on booking and scheduling processes, particularly in outpatient services.”

A year later, further issues were raised in the trust's board papers after a fault with its patient administration system (PAS) resulted in patient letters being generated but not printed, meaning some patients failed to receive letters referring them for further appointments.

The tender for the new system will close on October 1, with a successful supplier expected to be notified by December.

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