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with these guys.
Sectra named preferred supplier for major radiology contract in Greater Manchester
Likely to be one of the largest imaging contracts in England
A Swedish company has been named preferred supplier for a major radiology contract, spanning eight NHS trusts in the North West, HSJ has learned.
The trusts in Greater Manchester have chosen Sectra to provide a “picture archiving and communications system”, through which medical images such as X-rays and scans can be stored and sent.
The new system will incorporate a “vendor neutral archive”, which enables images to be shared more easily.
The value of the contract, which was advertised through an IT clinical framework, has yet to be confirmed. It is expected to last up to 10 years.
The providers currently use a PACS supplied by GE Healthcare, which is a legacy of the National Programme for IT.
The NPfIT, launched in 2006, allowed trusts across England to eliminate the use of film and chemicals for conventional image processing, as well as the need to manage, transport and store physical images.
But the next generation of PACS is expected to enable more efficient sharing of electronic images and reports within and between organisations.
Greater Manchester started planning a joint procurement in 2016, with the region’s devolution team suggesting it could deliver efficiency savings of £3m per year. The aim was to award the contract in June 2018, but that timeline has proved to be overly ambitious.
There have been many smaller procurements of next generation PACS across England over the last few years, but the Greater Manchester contract is likely to be one of the largest.
Another large collaborative is East Midlands Radiology Consortium, which signed a 10-year contract with GE Healthcare in 2015, worth £30m. HSJ has previously revealed widespread concerns over the performance of the system, which spans seven organisations.
The East Midlands contract includes a “radiology information system”, a computer system which provides features such as appointment scheduling and business analysis, but this is not part of the Greater Manchester contract. The RIS for the Greater Manchester trusts is provided by HSS, now part of Mansfield-based Wellbeing Software.
A spokesman for the Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, the region’s devolution team, told HSJ a formal announcement of the new contract holder is planned for 2020, once a full business case has been approved.
He added: “As the procurement was a collaborative procurement process involving many trusts, it has taken longer than anticipated to ensure that a robust process was undertaken, taking into consideration all trusts’ requirements and while ensuring value for money for Greater Manchester and its partners.”
The trusts involved are: Pennine Acute Hospitals Trust; Salford Royal Foundation Trust; Manchester University FT; Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care FT; Stockport FT; Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh FT;

Healthcare IT and Secured Communications
Founded
www.sectra.com
Sectra AB is a Swedish company active within medical technology and encrypted communication systems. Notable products include the communication system RAKEL[1] which is used by Swedish organisations and institutions that provide vital public services such as emergency services and public utility providers like power companies.
During the fiscal year 2014/2015 the company had a net revenue of 961 million SEK, an operating profit of 150 million SEK and 565 employees.[2] The company is publicly registered on Nasdaq, OMX Stockholm.
The company originated from Linköping, Sweden, where their headquarters are located. It is one of the larger technology companies in the city[3] and has close connections to Linköping University where the company was started.[4]

Total health spending in England was around £129 billion in 2018/19 and is expected to rise to nearly £134 billion by 2019/20, taking inflation into account. In 2018/19 around £115 billion was spent on the NHS England budget.The NHS is facing severe financial pressures, with trusts across the country spending more than they’re bringing in. The NHS was also asked several years ago to find £22 billion in savings by 2020, in order to keep up with rising demand and an ageing population.

Teleradiology is the transmission of radiological patient images, such as x-rays, CTs, and MRIs, from one location to another for the purposes of sharing studies with other radiologists and physicians. Teleradiology is a growth technology given that imaging procedures are growing approximately 15% annually against an increase of only 2% in the radiologist population.[1]
Teleradiology improves patient care by allowing radiologists to provide services without actually having to be at the location of the patient. This is particularly important when a sub-specialist such as a MRI radiologist, neuroradiologist, pediatric radiologist, or musculoskeletal radiologist is needed, since these professionals are generally only located in large metropolitan areas working during daytime hours. Teleradiology allows for trained specialists to be available 24/7.
Teleradiology utilizes standard network technologies such as the internet, telephone lines, wide area network, local area network (LAN) and the latest high tech being computer clouds. Specialized software is used to transmit the images and enable the radiologist to effectively analyze what can be hundreds of images for a given study. Technologies such as advanced graphics processing, voice recognition, artificial intelligence and image compression are often used in teleradiology. Through tele radiology and mobile DICOM viewers, images can be sent to another part of the hospital, or to other locations around the world.[2]