oh dear: Accenture prepares to drop NHS work

[AtW]

enture prepares to drop NHS work
By Miles Costello

enture, the American consulting and technology group, is today expected to walk away from the £6.2 billion contract to overhaul the National Health Service's IT system, dealing a further blow to the troubled project, already beset with delays.

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As the biggest contractor to the NHS's computer refit, some parts of which are running two years late, enture's contracts are thought to be worth £2 billion.

It is believed to be preparing to hand the vast majority of the contracts to Computer Sciences Corporation, an American company that is already working on the project in the North West and West Midlands.

Although the company is likely to face penalty payments for withdrawing as a contractor, it is reported to be negotiating a settlement package that would see it net £100 million.

Final meetings are taking place this morning, ahead of a formal statement on its withdrawal expected later today. enture posts its annual results in New York later today.

enture declined to comment this morning on what it is currently describing as "rumour and speculation".

However, enture is thought to have been considering its position over the NHS contract for some time. It said in March that it was "actively exploring all options with respect to the contracts".

It is not yet clear what implications enture's withdrawal will have for other NHS contractors, including iSoft, the troubled UK firm that has been fighting to retain its role on the project.

enture has already blamed iSoft for its expected losses on the IT overhaul and accused the company of breach of contract.

ISoft, whose shares rallied this morning on the expected enture withdrawal, reported in January that it was running late with its NHS work and issued a series of profit warnings during the year. This culminated in a £382 million reported net annual loss thanks to accounting irregularities involving revenue recognition.

ISoft has successfully negotiated an agreement with its lending banks that means it will not breach its loan covenants.

Shares in iSoft jumped 4.75p to 49.75p, a rise of more than 10 per cent. For more on the shares click here

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Surely this is not happening?

[DimPrawn]

enture

[interested]

The Guardian report is a bit more accurate

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1882423,00.html

But it didn't help that a) isoft pulled the wool over everyone's eyes and b) the NHS didn't fulfil their side of the contract - ie keep the hospitals onside. The contract seems to have gone from mandatory to optional - if hospitals etc can opt out, and the original contracts were based on x number of hospitals per LSP patch then the whole thing is doomed!

[xoggoth]

Is it really all the fault of these maligned companies or is it more that the public sector can never specify requirements properly or stop changing them? When I worked on defence projects for MOD we always stuck in a big buggeration factor because we knew they would bugger us about endlessly, make a fuss about things that didn't matter and fail to understand the issues that did.

[BoredBloke]

It's both. All these consultancies know that taking money from our public sector is as hard as taking milk from a baby. They will have gone in with knowledge of what half @rsed management they would be dealing with within the NHS.

By the same token the plebs in the NHS should have known from all other IT fiascos that something on the scale of this one could quite easily follow all previous trends and steps should have been taken to ensure it didn't.

So Accenture take a £100 million hit - how much have they made so far out of it? Will they be excluded from other public sector work

While at the NHS is anybody going to lose their job over it.

Answers on a postcard to Mr T Blair.

[TheMonkey]

Is it really all the fault of these maligned companies or is it more that the public sector can never specify requirements properly or stop changing them? When I worked on defence projects for MOD we always stuck in a big buggeration factor because we knew they would bugger us about endlessly, make a fuss about things that didn't matter and fail to understand the issues that did.

Been there, got the T-shirt. The endless layers of "certification by independent experts" is what buggered us.

[AtW]

Is it really all the fault of these maligned companies or is it more that the public sector can never specify requirements properly or stop changing them?

These people don't know how to specify things and often what they want - they need help and pray that they continue to do so otherwise all this work would definately be outsourced to India.

[DimPrawn]

You may as well outsource all this work to India, or Afghanistan or the moon.

It's a cheaper way for the UK tax payer to get a system that doesn't work.

[OrangeHopper]

Got a contract with DoD for second generation system. DoD and users liked mark I. Along comes customer for first meeting along with the user and, unfortunately, a human computer interface specialist.

The HCI specilaists said the existing multi-functional do-everything-you-want interface was too complicated for the user (i.e. the chap sitting next to him who had sung its praises for years). "The average user must be guide every step of the way.

So who got the all important says, the user or the HCI specialist. Yes, you guessed the HCI specialist who was never going to use the system.

Absolute nightmare, the whole thing. Was a relief when we saw the back of it.

[Joe Black]

Yep, as anyone who's worked in the public knows, listening to the end-user/business sponsor who will have to put up with the final sorry mess is not something that always comes high up the priority list.

So Accenture take a £100 million hit.

My reading of AtW's quote was the opposite: "Although the company is likely to face penalty payments for withdrawing as a contractor, it is reported to be negotiating a settlement package that would see it net £100 million."

Joe in "I can feel their pain" mode.