Two gigantic public sector IT frameworks up for grabs

University and NHS buying groups publish documents for frameworks which will be worth close to £2bn in total

Around 250 resellers are being sought by two public sector buying groups for a duo of frameworks which could be worth close to £2bn combined.

At the end of last week, the NHS London Procurement Partnership (NHS LPP) published documents for its Clinical and Digital Information System (CDIS) framework, which is expected to be worth between £800m and £1.3bn over its four-year life.

Around the same time, the Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium (SUPC) published details of its Servers, Storage and Solutions National Agreement (SSSNA) framework, which will be worth between £200m and £600m over a maximum four-year period.

The NHS LPP is a collection of NHS bodies based in and around the capital which aims to deliver "savings and improvements" to its members by buying together.

Its CDIS framework, which asks suppliers to provide it with a range of software, printers, servers, IT services, and consultancy, is split into four Lots and a maximum of 240 suppliers are expected to be appointed across them.

The Lots have been split into: Lot 1 - Electronic Patient Record Systems; Lot 2 - Hosting; Lot 3 - Enabling Systems supporting EP, consisting of Lot 3.1 - Fully Managed Document Service; Lot 3.2 - Hybrid Mail services; Lot 3.3 - External Print; and Lot 3.4 - Document Management Services and Electronic Document Records Management; and Lot 4 - Specialised Digital Solutions and Professional Services, which will be "of particular interest, but not exclusive" to SME bidders.

SUPC deal

The SUPC expects no more than 10 suppliers to be appointed to its SSSNA agreement.

The body, which represents higher education institutes across the south of England, is leading the procurement on behalf of a range of other buying groups including the Higher Education Purchasing Consortium for Wales (HEPCW), the London Universities Purchasing Consortium (LUPC), the North West Universities Purchasing Consortium (NWUPC), the North Eastern Universities Purchasing Consortium (NEUPC) and the Advanced Procurement for Universities and Colleges (APUC).

The framework focuses on the provision of servers, storage and solutions, as well as associated maintenance and support, and is split into four Lots: Lot 1 - Compute; Lot 2 - Storage; Lot 3a - Solutions; Lot 3b - High-Performance Computing or Data-Intensive Computing; and Lot 4 - Compute and Storage Solutions.