The £6bn National Programme for NHS IT (NPfIT) is to appoint suppliers for technology framework contracts worth up to £100m.

The deals will cover a broad range of hardware, software and services including clinical and administrative systems, network infrastructure and testing environments.

When the strategy was first made public last October, NPfIT director general Richard Granger told Computing that the contracts will ensure the programme has sufficient supplier capacity (Computing, 5 October).

The procurement represents a significant shift in focus, particularly in parallel with the recent initiative to give more control to primary care trusts, says Ovum analyst John O’Brien.

‘This introduces a level of competition and gives trusts more power over what they want to achieve,’ he said.

‘The plan has to be good news for clinicians and trusts because it is giving them a choice and they are no longer being forced down a route that perhaps they do not want.’

The framework deals will include software not covered by the National Programme, such as cancer systems and links to community and social care. But there are also specifications for hospital Patient Administration Systems (Pas), which are at

the heart of the National Programme and already available to trusts through their local service provider.

Health service IT directors are unsure how plans for alternative Pas provision will work, because of the cost to local trusts going outside the centrally-funded National Programme.

‘At an intellectual level there is a confusion of strategy here,’ said one senior NHS source.

‘The principle is good because it broadens out what is available, but the inclusion of alternative Pas is counter to the way the NPfIT contracts work.’