BT cops penalties under NHS contract
Kable
Published: 04 Jun 2004 12:45 BST
The NHS's biggest IT supplier is to pay compensation for failing to meet two important targets under its multimillion-pound contract.
BT is to pay compensation to the UK's National Health Service for failing to deliver key parts of the broadband infrastructure for the national programme for IT (NPfIT). The exact sum is still under discussion.
A NPfIT spokesperson told Government Computing News on 4 June, 2004: "BT is striving to address the small number of shortcomings from this first phase of work and continues to work constructively with the NHS to deploy broadband connectivity."
The company signed a £530m contract for "N3" network services in April which, in addition to its joint agreement with Accenture to provide a national data spine and integrated care records, make it the biggest supplier to the NPfIT.
The national programme said BT has missed two of the 56 targets for delivery of services in the first phase of its work to supply broadband to the NHS. However, the NPfIT spokesperson was unable to give any details of which services had failed. According experts, however, any delay in the implementation of the infrastructure at this stage would not be greatly damaging.
Richard Granger, director of the NPfIT, said at a press conference yesterday that the overall programme was making good progress, according to reports in the FT.
This view was reiterated today by a NPfIT spokesperson. "The contracts are addressing the circumstances which can occur in large scale IT programmes and the contracts are proving to be effective."
The NPfIT contracts come with stringent terms and conditions attached. While companies were still bidding for the work, fears emerged that the strings attached could deter potential suppliers.
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