§ Mr. MorganTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what(a) evaluation arrangements, (b) business case, (c) value-for-money submission and (d) competitive tendering procedures were submitted to the Treasury for a computerised medical terms language prior to the selection of the Read codes system. [35071]
§ Mr. HoramThe decision to negotiate a purchase of the copyright for Read terms rested on a joint recommendation from the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners following an evaluation of coding and classification systems undertaken by the joint computing group of these organisations.
As to the matters of a business case and value for money, I refer the hon. Member to the reply my hon. Friend the then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health gave him on 18 October 1995, Official Report, columns 280–81.
Since the Read codes were a unique product for which purchase was being negotiated, there could be no question of a tendering process.
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