The contract awarded to the Northern Ireland-based IT company is for a duration of two years. It will be based on how the Covid-19 pans out, reported The Irish News.
Most of the work related to the contract is expected to be undertaken by Kainos in the first three months.
Last December, the company was given a £13m contract by NHS Digital for developing an NHS app. The Northern Ireland-based firm won a £3.6m award in April 2020 for NHS Digital’s GP IT Futures programme.
NHS Digital said that it had worked with various firms during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic to establish the digital infrastructure needed for the test and trace programme of the UK government.
The latest tender was issued after the agency in June was given the responsibility of leading the integration of the digital service.
According to NHS Digital, the testing service’s digital elements, especially, the home testing side, requires more development to cope up with the demands for Covid-19 tests.
NHS Digital product development executive director Ben Davison, has been quoted by the publication, as saying: “Much has been achieved in an extremely short period in establishing a digital infrastructure for testing.
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“As testing capacity increases, including home testing, the IT underpinning the service needs to remain reliable and user-centred in its design and delivery.
“We look forward to working with Kainos on this crucial programme of work.”
Meanwhile, the NHS Covid-19 app is set to be launched across and England and Wales this week. Ahead of that, the UK government has urged hospitality businesses and venues to display NHS QR codes so that customers can check in to enable contact tracing.
