NPfIT legacy: NHS yet to spend £600m on CSC Lorenzo patient records

The NHS has still to spend £600m on the Lorenzo patient record systems system provided by CSC, according to the Public Accounts Select Committee (PASC).

The electronic patient records systems were part of the National Programme for IT (NPfIT), which the government claimed it had axed in September 2011.

To date government has spent £1.1bn with CSC, with that figure rising to £2.2bn over the total life of the contract.

The original value of the contract was £3.1bn at 2006/7. Since then the NHS has reduced its contractual exposure with CSC, with the company originally having exclusive rights to supply to 160 trusts.

So far Morecambe Bay is the only trust to have a Lorenzo system across a major hospital.

“You’re going to spend another half billion with the rotten company to supply hopeless software,” said Margaret Hodge, PASC chair.

“After 10 years of failing to deliver a product on time we are now going to give them potentially another 100 million in so-called success payments.”

MPs heard part of the rationale for the payments was to avoid further legal disputes, following ongoing disputes with Fujitsu.

Fujitsu’s contract was terminated in 2008. The company has been paid £151m out of a contract originally worth £896. The dispute is currently in arbitration, which means Fujitsu could still receive a further payment.  

Total legal costs of £31.5m have been spent so far on the Fujitsu dispute, paid principally to law firm DLA Piper, MPs were told.

Sir David Nicholson, chief executive for the NHS in England, said: “When we cancelled the contract with Fujitsu, the advice we were given at the time was that everything would be fine. But of course several years later we are still involved in legal details.”