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NHS: ICT

Volume 472: debated on Thursday 6 March 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Health which strategic health authorities have trusts with Cerner Millennium systems (a) installed and (b) proposed for installation; who in NHS headquarters has the responsibility for collating the experience of trusts with Cerner; what assessment he has made of levels of satisfaction with Cerner in the NHS; and if he will make a statement. (191290)

Information on existing deployments for each strategic health authority (SHA) area are shown in the following table.

SHA

Trust

NHS London

Homerton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

Newham Healthcare NHS Trust

Barnet and Chase Farm Hospitals NHS Trust

Queen Mary's Sidcup NHS Trust

South Central

Buckinghamshire Hospitals NHS Trust

Milton Keynes General Hospital NHS Trust

Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre NHS Trust

Winchester and Eastleigh Healthcare NHS Trust

South East Coast

Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust

Worthing and Southlands Hospitals

South West

Weston Area Health NHS Trust

Taunton and Somerset NHS Trust

Other trusts in these SHA areas, and one further trust in the North West SHA, will in due course go live with the Cerner Millennium system on dates to be determined by local agreement with the national health service bodies concerned.

While many users who have become familiar with the Cerner Millennium software over time have expressed satisfaction with the system, we are aware that initial concerns have been expressed by some users about the level and quality of functionality provided following some recent deployments of the system. These concerns are being investigated.

Since April 2007, deployment of systems is the responsibility of the SHAs. However, at a national level, NHS Connecting for Health collates information about the performance of suppliers and handles commercial issues. NHS Connecting for Health and SHAs are working closely with the relevant local service providers, and their sub-contractor Cerner to address the user's concerns about the product and its ease of use. The continuous process of applying lessons learned from each deployment aims to ensure the system achieves its potential to serve the needs of the NHS.