AQW 9119/11-15

Mr Steven Agnew
Green Party
North Down

Tabled Date: 01/03/2012
Answered On Date: 08/03/2012
Priority Written: Yes

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health, Social Services and Public Safety, pursuant to AQW 8018/11-15, given that the Electronic Care Records (ECR) Project's proof of concept was for a view only portal that provided Health and Social Care professionals with a unified view of data from a variety of existing clinical information systems (i) why only the four top scoring companies in the tender exercise were contacted to provide costs for a project to implement a clinical portal to provide full ECR functionality and scope across hospitals; (ii) who made this decision; (iii) when this decision was made; (iv) how the four companies scored, broken down by each section; and (v) to detail the high level scoping document and ECR costs template provided to the companies.

Answer:

The top six companies from the Northern Ireland Electronic Care Record (NIECR) Proof of Concept pre qualification process were asked to provide costs, with five suppliers providing information.

It was considered that the inclusion of the costs of four suppliers was sufficient to inform the cost assumptions in the Outline Business Case, prior to the commencement of a new procurement process for the regional NIECR project. The decision to use the cost assumptions of these suppliers was taken by the Electronic Care Record Project Team in January 2011.

The Electronic Care Record Proof of Concept pre-qualification process scores of the four companies included in the Outline Business Case, the scoping and costs letter and the associated costs template have been placed in the Assembly library due to the size of the documents.