St George's Healthcare NHS Trust, based in Tooting in South London, is leading the tender process on behalf of the other trusts. The other NHS trusts that are collaborating on the procurement are: Barts and the London; Croydon; Imperial College; Kingston; Newham; Royal Free Hampstead; South London; and Whipps Cross.
The tender states that these systems will have to include a full range of administrative and clinical modules required by the trusts, and suppliers will also be required to handle licensing, maintenance, deployment and support.
Will Smart, director of IM&T at Royal Free Hampstead, told an event in London earlier this year: "We need to connect up the health economy. That's our challenge."
He said that the NHS needed to improve its co-operation, but that setting up joint working and connectivity was difficult. When the Royal Free compared its ICT infrastructure to that used by other London trusts, it found that 95% of systems were different.
