More than 100 technology suppliers have been selected as candidates for new contracts with the NHS national IT programme

Connecting for Health has published a candidate list of 116 companies for a series of "framework" contracts aimed at creating access to a broader base of ICT suppliers. The agency is responsible for delivering the £12.4bn NHS national IT programme.

The list is made up of 34 national companies and 82 SMEs. It includes major suppliers to government and the existing suppliers to the national programme, such as Computacenter, Capgemini UK, EDS, Agilisys, Cerner, PA Consulting, LogicaCMG, Oracle and Atos Origin, and Accenture.

The tendering process for the programme, known as Additional Supply Capability and Capacity (ASCC), was launched in March. In an advertisement in the Official Journal of the European Union, procurement was divided into four lots. They are: ICT; clinical IT services; hardware, infrastructure and associated services; and test environments and related services.

"The procurement has now entered the dialogue phase, with longlisted suppliers receiving an invitation to participate in a dialogue," said Connecting for Health (CfH). "During this phase longlisted suppliers will receive further information concerning the scope of the services required in each of the four lots."

CfH expects that most of the final contracts will be awarded at the end of the year.

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