Civica saves NHS money

VAR is one of a handful signed up to a new money-saving licensing offer for NHS Trusts

Civica is urging NHS organisations to save on their software bills by signing up to its latest scheme.

The VAR is one of a handful of large account resellers (LARs) signed up to the licensing offer that is open until 30 June.

It enables individual NHS ICT organisations to achieve the type of discounts that were only previously available under the Connecting for Health Enterprise Wide Agreement (EwA) that ended in May 2010.

Any Primary Health Care Trust, Hospital Trust, Strategic Health Authority, Mental Health Trust, Ambulance Trust or NHS Trust that was previously registered under the EwA, and renews a Microsoft enterprise agreement on an individual basis for the three years to 2014, qualifies for discounted pricing.

When the EwA ended last May, trusts’ software licence allocations were determined centrally by Connecting for Health (CfH), meaning trusts are now responsible for understanding their Microsoft entitlement.

Chris Ginnelly, managing director of Civica Services, said: “The Microsoft licensing offer is a welcome development for ICT teams who can now make individual agreements at similarly discounted rates to that negotiated by CfH.

“In addition, by working with Civica, NHS IT directors can use the work their departments put into the license allocation process last year to enhance the management of their software assets, simplify software compliance and reduce overall financial risk.”