Over £7m increase in EPR costs for Trust after delays

Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust are expecting a £7.5 million overspend on their Cerner electronic patient record implementation, according to their January Board Papers.

The cost for the deployment is predicted to rise from the originally speculated figure of £4.74m to a monstrous £12.24m - a 258% increase on their initial calculation.

The main reason believed to have caused this astronomical increase is the lengthy delay in the deployment of the new system into the trust, but there is no specific detail as to why.

The West Yorkshire trust were scheduled to go-live on November 19 2016, but have since proposed a new timescale of between March and May this year.

The cause for the lengthy deferral was due to “delays in the migration of data” which have also caused a domino effect on expenditure in other areas of the trust, including a “reduced spend on the estate and equipment”, a spokesperson told Digital Health.

“Migration of patient records from two distinct trusts is pretty unique across the NHS and if successful paves the way for a new approach to the harmonisation of patient records."

The trust delayed the planned deployment to ensure a safe transition of patient information from their current in-house system, which has been used since 1985, to the new Cerner system.

The northern trust procured Cerner alongside neighbouring Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in March 2015, with the initial total cost estimated as £29.1m - £18m from Calderdale and Huddersfield and £12m from Bradford over the 10-year contract, but has since been

increased to £34.4m.

Despite the growing cost, the papers stated progress was being made in data migration, e-prescribing and order comms, with the latter raising concerns.

But the self-published document assured “there is no reason to suggest that this will impact on a March go-live.”