Civica snaps up Gateway Computing

VAR bolsters its NHS presence with acquisition of electronic document management specialist

Civica has strengthened its reach in the UK health sector with the acquisition of Gateway Computing for an undisclosed sum.

The Yeovil-based firm provides electronic document management (EDM) systems to 50 NHS organisations across the UK which digitise more than 140 million images each year.

By adding Gateway to its acquisition tally, Civica can now count 275 NHS trusts as customers.

Simon Downing, chief executive of Civica, said, “I am delighted to welcome Gateway to the group. The business strengthens and extends our position in an important market area in keeping with our vision to help customers streamline their services and achieve significant savings through a distinctive combination of specialist systems, IT managed services and business process outsourcing.”

Scott Wilce, managing director of Gateway Computing, added: “The acquisition is a very positive step for the business. The combination of Gateway’s specialist solutions with Civica’s market-leading product and service portfolio represents a unique capability to respond to our customers’ needs, in particular to improve the handling of documents and data in order to transform the way they work.”

Tola Sargeant, director at analyst TechMarketView, said the acquisition was in keeping with Civica’s strategy.

“We expected Civica to acquire further to strengthen its relatively nascent healthcare business, which we estimate accounted for just over £7m of its £128m turnover last fiscal year. Gateway brings a complementary technology – Civica already has a strong presence in local government EDM – and a footprint in the NHS market,” Sargeant added.

“Perhaps most importantly from Civica’s point of view, Gateway has a business process services (BPS) capability in outsourced document management and scanning. Civica is putting increasing emphasis on platform-based BPS linked to its specialist systems, an area where it expects growth."

She concluded: “EDM and outsourced document scanning are in demand in the health sector, which remains heavily paper-based despite the erstwhile national programme, and Civica’s scale and complementary systems and services should make it easier for Gateway to win business. All in all, [it is] another sensible bolt-on by Simon Downing and the team.”