NI awards £26.7m health deal to Steria

Steria has won a 10-year £26.7m contract to link healthcare organisations in Northern Ireland and modernise GPs' surgeries.

Coming ahead of similar plans to join up healthcare across the rest of the UK, the IT services company says it is the first time a community of this type and size has been linked electronically.

The actual agreement is with the Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety, which will for the first time have 400 organisations sharing patient information. The aim of an aspect called Health and Care Number is to stop duplication of patient information across branches of the health system.

Information will travel over an encrypted VPN, with networks supplied by BTNI, key software from Torex Health and central hardware from IBM, which trumpeted its part of the wider contract in August.

Steria has recently won a number of large public sector contracts across Europe.

Last month a criminal justice system project won by Fujitsu Services was also billed as Northern Ireland leading the way in ICT implementation.