NHS England has awarded a £108 million ERP contract – without competition – to the incumbent supplier, a joint venture between the NHS and French outsourcer Sopra Steria., the non-departmental public body of the Department for Health and Social Care said the deal started in October 2022 and is set to run until March 31, 2031.
The baseline whole-life cost was set at £301 million by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority , a Whitehall watchdog which, in its, gave the project a"red" risk rating due to areas which need"urgent" addressing including"sufficient resource in some key areas such as commercial strategy and project management support." The IPA also noted delays to the outline businesses case but said the procurement project end date remains as October 31, 2024.
The deal is to upgrade the financial management system responsible for handling England's health sector spending, annually, from Oracle E-Business Suite 12.2 to Oracle Fusion Cloud Financials. A spokeswoman for NHS Shared Business Services said:"The contract is for the provision of the next generation Integrated Single Financial Environment for NHS England and commissioning organisations. The new Cloud-based system will be based on Oracle Fusion and other best-in-class technologies and will provide secure, consistent and best practice finance processes nationwide."