Connecting for Health will now pay BT £1bn, 61 percent more than the original £620m, to provide the national Spine for the NHS National Programme for IT, following a contract reset in February this year, according to a parliamentary written answer from health minister Ben Bradshaw.
The amounts which will be paid under the six main contracts have risen from the original total of £5.5bn to £6.6bn as a result of those negotiations.
"Where there are increases in the value of the reset contract when compared to the original contract value, this is due to changes or additional requirements that have been negotiated as part of the reset agreement and these have been approved through normal governance arrangements," said Bradshaw in his answer to a question from his Conservative shadow, Stephen O'Brien, on 1 September.
"There are no changes to the cost of delivering the requirements of the original contracts," said a Connecting for Health spokesperson. "Additional work for new requirements and additional functionality will attract additional costs — as was always part of the contract."
"The updated Spine contract deals with new requirements that have arisen since the contract was let and include such functionality to support the delivery of 'Payment by Results', the 18-week referral programme and the further development of the Secondary Uses Service to support wider NHS work and requirements," the spokesperson added.
BT declined to comment, citing commercial confidentiality. The firm will also receive more money following the reset in May 2007 of its contract to act as local service provider in London. It will earn an additional nine percent, taking the deal's value to £1.082bn.
All five of the contracts for the local service providers have been reset to provide payment increases. In September 2005, Fujitsu negotiated an increase of 32 percent in its fee for providing services to the NHS in the south of England, from £896m to £1.182bn.
The firm was fired from the National Programme for IT in May 2008. Bradshaw said that Fujitsu's liability to the government is capped at £100m for each contract year, to a total of £500m, while the government's liability is capped at £50m for each contract year.
In January 2007, CSC got increases of seven percent on its payment for the north-east region, to £1.179bn, and 14 percent for both the eastern region, which is now worth £1.064bn, and the north west and West Midlands area, now worth £1.11bn.
