9 December 2003 BT has won two ten-year contracts to manage National Health Service (NHS) patient records in deals worth a total of £1.6 billion.

The telecoms giant beat off strong competition from systems and software vendor IBM to secure the contracts. Both will involve creating secure systems which improve information sharing and updating, and avoid duplication of files.

For the first, worth £620 million, BT will design, deliver and manage a national patient record database and messaging service, in partnership with LogicaCMG, Sun Microsystems and Oracle. The database will hold some 50 million individual NHS patient records.

The second deal, worth £996 million, will see BT implement and operate integrated local patient record applications and systems for the London region. Both will use BT’s systems integration subsidiary, Syntegra.

BT CEO Ben Verwaayen described the deals as his company’s “biggest ever”. He added: “This is BT taking on world class competition on its own territory and winning.”

However, the company will have to meet stiff performance targets laid down by Richard Granger, the NHS director general of IT.

BT is in the running for a number of other contracts in the NHS Modernisation Programme, including one to build and maintain an underlying network for the NHS. In this deal, BT is facing EDS and Cable &Wireless; the winner will be announced in January.

BT is also a sub-contractor for Accenture as part of a third deal, worth £1.1 billion, to create a patient record database for the north east of England. The company’s share of this ten year contract is estimated at £200 million.

NHS IT director Richard Granger has said he wants a minimum of three suppliers for the five big regional contracts. BT is still in contention for the north-west and Midlands contract, against CSC and Fujitsu. Accenture, Cerner, Cap Gemini Ernst &Young and PlexusCare are competing for the east of England contract.