NHS Scotland’s regional health boards are to consolidate their HR, finance, payroll and procurement processes on one shared national cloud system.
A £206m tender has been launched by NHS National Services Scotland – the central procurement arm for Scotland’s NHS – to procure an ‘integrated, cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution for finance, HR, payroll and procurement functions for all NHS Scotland Boards and a systems implementer to design, deliver and implement the chosen SaaS solution to meet the requirements.’
The 15-year contract is designed to ‘modernise NHS Scotland’s ICT (Information and Communication Technology) infrastructure and support its digital transformation efforts,’ noted a tender document published on the Public Contracts Scotland website.
InnoScot Health – a partner organisation for the NHS in Scotland – welcomed the development today.
Graham Watson, its executive chair, said: “This is undoubtedly positive news for a health service looking to deliver on its modern, forward-thinking ambitions. It is a much-needed step and will be hugely welcomed by aspiring workforce innovators, with NHS Scotland striving to provide a flexible, agile, and cost-effective environment supporting both better joined up service delivery and more progressive ambitions.
“In the short-term, it is vital that the right SaaS platform is identified, along with a trusted systems implementer to support a strong design, delivery, and rollout. If that is achieved, then in the longer-term, the benefits are clearly huge – from the potential to revolutionise patient care in Scotland by improving data management, to enhancing collaborative efforts, and lowering costs.”
The tender states that SaaS and system integrator suppliers must enter a “bidding partnership” from the outset and jointly offer “a cohesive solution and delivery approach” in order to apply for the contract by 18 June.
The competitive procedure will result in two national contracts from NSS – one with the technology vendor, and another with the systems integrator.
The proposed budget will be split, with £120m given directly to the cloud-based SaaS solution, and the rest spent on implementation costs.
The Scottish Government’s Care in the Digital Age: delivery plan 2024 to 2025 notes that it plans to complete the full rollout of a new National GP IT system, before moving to a single cloud hosted solution by 2026.
The plan pledges to “support and develop our current and future leaders to drive, deliver and embed digital transformation across Scotland’s health and care service”.
It added that “health and care services are built on people-centred, safe, secure and ethical digital foundations which allow staff to record, access and share relevant information across the health and care system, and feel confident in their use of digital technology, in order to improve the delivery of care”.
Last year, NSS contracted OneAdvanced Health and Care’s cloud-based software to serve as a document management system across all GP practices in Scotland.
Mr Watson added: “Across global healthcare, integration of cloud software is helping to enable telemedicine and facilitate the use of new artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies for improved patient outcomes.
“Those are just a few examples, and I am certain it will prove to be a valuable investment on numerous levels. The cloud is nothing less than a foundation for the future of the NHS which will only encourage its innovators – and I am delighted that the wheels are now firmly in motion to grasp its many opportunities.”
NHS Scotland currently has 14 regional health boards, 7 specialist health boards and one national public health body, which provide specialist and national services supporting the regional boards.
Recently, the Scottish Labour party has proposed the number of territorial health boards to be cut from 14 to three, a pledge that has been adopted as part of its manifesto for next year’s Scottish Parliament elections.
