Key NHS IT deals to save £30m

The NHS has signed a series of IT deals with key suppliers, in a move that could save the health service £30m.

Six health service-wide arrangements have been agreed with Cisco, EMC, HP, SeeBeyond, Sun and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS).

The National Programme for IT (NPfIT) in the NHS claims the deal is further evidence of how the health service is using its scale to aggregate purchasing power and get more cost-effective deals.

Gordon Hextall, COO for NPfIT, said in a statement: "Innovative arrangements such as these are another example of the National Programme ensuring that the NHS gets the best value for the systems and services it procures that help deliver significant benefits for patients and clinicians alike. The arrangements we have with these suppliers will help ensure a modernised NHS supported by quality IT systems for the benefit of all."

Cisco's network equipment will be used for the N3 broadband network, the care record service (CRS) and the electronic booking service; EMC will provide storage technology for the CRS; HP will provide a range of ProLiant and NonStop server storage configurations to form the core of the data centres implemented by the main contractors in each of the five Local Service Provider regions; SeeBeyond will provide integration software for the cross-indexing of patient records; Sun will provide software, server and storage hardware and services to a range of NHS NPfIT suppliers including the CRS; India's TCS will provide data migration, clinical application implementation and systems integration services.