Procurement and VFM. The GDE funding will be targeted specifically towards products, developments and services delivered by our strategic EPR supplier, System C. The OJEU notice (reference 2010/S 200-305241) and subsequent procurement by Competitive Dialogue Process leading to our current contract with System C was published in the European Journal on 14 October 2010, with a tender document sent to bidders on 6 January 2011, updated on 15 March 2011. The Contract was concluded on 10 May 2011, based on the ‘OGC Model ICT Contract version 2.3’. The OJEU notice was explicit in stating that “the Trust is looking for Strategic Partners whose chosen solutions must be adaptable or extendable to meet the future needs of the Trust in building towards an Electronic Patient Record. The Trust therefore has the option to utilise additional existing and future functionality provided by the chosen supplier or suppliers”, with provision for additional services in addition to a contract increase of 50% over the initial contract value. However, the Trust has decided that it will address the possibility of challenge by conducting a thorough value-for-money assessment of System C’s proposals, awarding directly only where it can be demonstrated that there are no other solution options that can achieve the same level of functional integration with our existing core EPR components. One functional area that is sufficiently open to competition is e-Observations, although there is still a high level of integration required. This will be applied to procurement framework to ensure that we can demonstrate competition has been engaged. The VFM and procurement exercise is expected to be completed by the end of May 2017 with the contract with our main supplier in place by the end of Q1 17/18, with the GDE milestones forming contractual markers. Both System C and UHBristol are proceeding with preliminary work at risk in advance of contract agreement. We do not consider achievement of this contractual arrangement to be a formal risk.
