Massive £500m IT framework '99.9 per cent' ready

Small delay hits NHS SBS contract but it is expected to be official from Friday

A massive public sector IT framework worth up to £500m is very nearly ready to go live, after being hit by a small delay due to admin hold-ups.

NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) was due to go live with its Link 2 IT Hardware framework on 1 December. But admin for the massive deal has led to a small delay.

NHS SBS managing director Peter Adkin told CRN that he anticipates it will get the green light by this Friday (16 December).

Paul Christie, category manager at NHS SBS, added: "Over the last couple of weeks we have tried to pull everything together. At this moment, we are 99.9 per cent there. It's a case of pulling all the terms and conditions together. It's not that no-one has agreed to it - they've all agreed in principle - it's just we're also doing this with the NOECPC, a procurement hub in Yorkshire. We've got to make sure they countersign and they're comfortable. The slight delay isn't that we've not hit our timescale, it's just the admin behind it."

This framework is the second iteration of the Link IT Hardware framework, which customers can continue to use in the meantime.

According to the contract documents, the second iteration could be worth up to £500m over a four-year period. The contract is set to last for two years initially, with the option to extend for two 12-month periods.

NHS SBS has 57 NHS members, but also more than 600 associated partner organisations throughout the rest of the public sector, which will be able to use the contact.

The contract is split into 10 Lots:

Lot 1 - Desktops, £100m

Lot 2 - Laptops, £100m

Lot 3 - Tablets, £50m

Lot 4 - Healthcare IT, £50m

Lot 5 - Clinical Monitors, £25m

Lot 6 - Green IT, £10m

Lot 7 - Printers and Scanners, £25m

Lot 8 - Deployment Services, £20m

Lot 9 - Third-party Warranty, £20m

Lot 10 - One-stop shop, £100m