HC Deb 07 January 2003 vol 397 c187W
Chris Grayling

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what assessment he made of alternative systems prior to the decision to contract EDS to supply a hotmail system to the National Health Service; when the project to procure a hotmail system for the NHS was originally costed, and what the initial estimated cost for the system was; for what purpose the NHS is commissioning a hotmail system; and what estimate he has made of the final cost of the system. [88179]

Mr. Lammy

As part of a formal open competitive procurement exercise 30 expressions of interest in the national e-mail service were received; eight of these were invited to submit outline proposals based on the service specification. Five of these responded, from which the final shortlist of three was chosen and their proposals assessed in detail.

The Outline Business Case (OBC) for the National Health Service national e-mail system was prepared in September 2001.

The initial total cost to the NHS for the recommended option in the OBC was estimated at £148 million over five years.

The national e-mail service is a strategic business tool for the NHS and an enabler for many of the electronic data flows which the NHS wish to implement. The service will give NHS staff a single e-mail address that can be securely accessed from within the NHS network as well as from the Internet. This will be particularly useful to NHS staff based in more than one organisation or who require mobile working in the community. Staff will also be able to access their e-mails via portable devices such as mobile phones or personal digital assistants as well as from home.

The contract was let for a period of 10 years after negotiation with EDS for a cost of £9 million with an option to terminate after five years.

Number of emergency psychiatric re-admissions of patients aged 16–64 within 90 days of discharge from the care of a psychiatric specialist as a percentage of such discharges
1997–98 total1 1998–99 total1 1999–2000 total1 2000–1 total1 2001–02 total2
Number of re-admissions within 90 days 16,384 15,461 14,875 14,068 13,306
Total number of discharges 114,946 113,585 114,616 110,312 104,367
Re-admission rate (percentage) 14.3 13.6 13.0 12.8 12.7

Source:

1 Common Information Core, now known as the 2 Service and Financial Framework Return (SaFFR), end of financial year forecast outturn (FOT) position, apart from 1997–98 where only activity for each quarter was collected, so figures represent the sum of all four quarters.