Fujitsu Services

Fujitsu signs £220 million contract with National Health Service to modernise medical imaging

Fujitsu Services, the IT services company chosen as Local Service Provider (LSP) for the NHS' southern cluster, can today announce that it has been awarded a £220 million contract to provide Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) for the same region. The contract will further the NHS drive to improve healthcare for patients in the south of England.

London, 21st May 2004 — The PACS system will achieve reductions in the time taken to diagnose illness and injury. It stores the results of all scans, such as X-rays, in a digital format, making them accessible to authorised personnel using web-based technology. It will improve the NHS' efficiency and ability to deliver care to patients by making these records available instantly to medical experts globally and by making diagnoses available more quickly than previously, reducing hospital stays. The system will also reduce the cost of storage and remove the high cost of developing and administering physical film.

The new contract follows the existing agreement Fujitsu signed with the NHS in January 2004 to implement the National Programme for IT in the NHS in the southern cluster of England. The award was made at the end of a highly competitive bidding process which has seen the cost of PACS to the NHS greatly reduced. Fujitsu aims to deliver PACS across the whole southern region within three years. Fujitsu will provide full technical support until 2013. This contract is part of a programme being rolled out nationwide.

"This new contract demonstrates the NHS' faith in our ability to deliver real modernisation that improves care to patients," said David Courtley, chief executive officer of Fujitsu Services. "We have looked closely at the problem and put together the right solution and are looking forward to implementing it immediately."

The Southern cluster includes Kent, Surrey, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire Somerset, Dorset, Avon Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall. The changes will benefit 13 million patients and some 256,000 NHS staff across 7 Strategic Health authorities that serve these counties.

Fujitsu's partner in delivering PACS is GE Medical Systems, which has a 100 year history of delivering medical technology and is the global leader in medical imaging.

Richard Granger, director general of NHS IT, said: "Fujitsu Services and its partners have worked with us to deliver the best possible value and first class performance. The new system will help doctors do what they do best - treating patients - and will provide NHS users with a first class, 21st century service. This ground-breaking deal is a great example of how investment in IT infrastructure is helping to deliver better patient care."

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About Fujitsu Services

Fujitsu Services is one of the leading IT services companies in Europe, Middle East and Africa . It has an annual turnover of £1.74 billion, (€2.58 billion) employs 14,500 people and operates in over 20 countries. It designs, builds and operates IT systems and services for customers in the financial services, telecom, retail, utilities and government markets. Its core strength is the delivery of IT infrastructure management and outsourcing across desktop, networking and data centre environments, together with a full range of related services, from consulting through integration and deployment. Headquartered in London, Fujitsu Services is the European-centred IT services arm of the Fujitsu Group. The Fujitsu Group is a US$45 billion (€37 billion) leader in customer-focused IT systems and services for the global marketplace.
For more information, please see: uk.fujitsu.com

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