pennine on brink of dropping lorenzo

Pennine on brink of dropping Lorenzo
11 Oct 2010

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust may be on the brink of abandoning its Lorenzo implementation following continuing concerns and difficulties around implementing the system, E-Health Insider has learned.

Pennine is meant to be the first mental health trust to take Lorenzo. One mental health; one acute ? University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust; and one PCT, NHS Bury, are required to go live with Lorenzo to trigger key NPfIT contract milestones and payments to CSC and iSoft.

Sources have told E-Health Insider that Pennine is struggling with the implementation of the electronic patient record from iSoft and may not only further delay the go-live but drop the implementation altogether.

Massive NHS reorganisation is also forcing the trust to re-think its approach to IM&T.

One source told E-Health Insider: ?The three PCTs in the area will be affected by the move of the provider arms to Pennine Care and all three PCTS are on different pathways. The question that they are facing now is how far can they keep pushing this [implementation] back and is dropping Lorenzo the only option.?

The trust was meant to go live with Lorenzo R1.9 in November 2009 but has pushed back its go-live date several times following delays at Morecambe Bay

At the beginning of the summer the Department of Health said that the trust along with Birmingham Women?s NHS Foundation Trust and Kettering General Hospital would go live ?over late summer and early autumn.?

When EHI asked Pennine Care if it is still planning to go live with the Lorenzo and when the go live is scheduled for, the trust declined to comment. EHI understands that Birmingham Women?s now plans to go-live at the beginning of November and Kettering will go live before the end of the year.

However, EHI has been told that Birmingham Women?s early November date is unlikely to be achieved, with delays into 2011 now a possibility.

Last month, Christine Connelly told EHI that local service provider for the North, Midlands and East, CSC must be successful in deploying Lorenzo Release 1.9 at Morecambe Bay, Birmingham Women?s, NHS Bury and Pennine Care to get past the early adopter release key milestone.

The failure of Pennine to deploy Lorenzo could have massive implications for CSC who are expected to receive a large cash payment only when all four key early adopter sites successfully go-live.

CSC is still in contract negotiations with the Department of Health around what will happen if it is not successful in deploying Lorenzo as well as remedial plans to further deploy the system across the NME.

Earlier this year, trusts were given the option to opt out of taking Lorenzo and instead continue with their current system or implement one of their own choice without facing financial penalties.

Although no figure has been formally confirmed EHI has been told by a range of sources that 50-70 trusts will continue to take Lorenzo.

Sarah Bruce

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