The NHS is set to begin a software supplier procurement process by the end of April 2010 to ensure no trusts are left without IT suppliers.

Southern trusts will choose from suppliers including Atos Origin, Logica, Siemens, Perot Systems, Tata Consultancy Services and Agfa Healthcare. Some trusts are also expected to run collaborative procurement, it was reported in E-Health Insider.

Many NHS trusts in the south of England were left without new patient administration systems following the departure of IT partner Fujitsu from the £12.7 billion National IT Programme in 2008.

The news comes as NHS IT suppliers, BT and CSC prove they have succeeded in implemented workable patient systems.

CSC has already implemented the iSoft Lorenzo system at Bury, and BT is also understood to be putting the final pieces into place at Kingston for the Cerner Millennium system.

The NHS has said it will work through a list of criteria that will examine the usability of the system and has commented that if there is a “clear failure”, then it will “consider a new plan for delivering health informatics”.