TECH BRIEFS

Supply Management, Jun 5, 2008

* NHSTRUSTCONSORTIUM TURNS TO Å-PURCHASING

The County Durham and Tees NHS Trusts consortium is to deploy a new e-procurement system to help manage its £350 million spend.

The group, which includes 10 trusts, will use the system for electronic tendering, e-auctions, contract management, purchasing and invoice matching. It has around 3,000 suppliers and wants greater visibility of spend through the system.

* IDENTITY AND PASSPORT SERVICE PICKS SUPPLIERS

The Identity and Passport Service (IPS) has invited five suppliers to sign framework agreements to supply passports and ID cards.

CSC, EDS, Fujitsu, IBM and Thales have been selected to form a strategic supplier group for the programme, and will now compete in minicompetitions to win contracts for the project.

The IPS hopes use of such a group will shorten the length of the procurement process.

* COUNCILS SIGN DEAL WITH COMENSURA

A consortium of local authorities in Hertfordshire believes it can reduce the cost of temporary labour by 4 per cent in a year with technology.

The group has placed a £4.9 million, five-year contract with Comensura for a webbased system to fill temporary recruitment vacancies.

* RICE UNIVERSITY CHOOSES SCIQUEST

Texas-based research institute Rice University has chosen an e-procurement system from SciQuest to consolidate purchasing and improve contracts.

The university also wants to increase the amount of information it has about its spending. "We wanted technology simple enough for everyone on campus to use, and complex enough to address the unique challenges of the research environment," said Brian Soika, director of procurement at Rice.

* NHS IT SYSTEMD ELAYS BRING SPEND DOWN

Spending on core contracts for the NHS national programme for IT is 44 per cent less than projected at this stage - but only because of the delay in implementing systems.

According to a report by the National Audit Office, NHS Connecting for Health, which is in charge of the project, had spent just over £1.9 billion on core contracts by the end of March, instead of the £3.4 billion expected.