Sema Group Plc, the Anglo-French IT services company, has taken over from California-based Computer Sciences Corp to provide an outsourced IT service for some of the National Health Service in Scotland in a contract worth 58.8m pounds over five years. CSC, which won a 60m pound, three-year contract in 1995, had refused to bid for the new contract after the NHS did not extend the contract for a further 18 months. The new deal, to start in April 1999, for five years, and an option of two more, will cover the mainframes, Unix systems, PCs and networking at the key points of Edinburgh, Paisley and Dundee, as well as other regions. Sema will help provide services and upgrades for the systems in payroll, technical and financial systems, among others. The Common Services Agency – which coordinates the work for the NHS – did not comment on the IT strategy that is to be applied but will be the contact point for Sema, which has committed itself to a set workload. This is an attempt by Sema to remove itself from some of the criticism and multiple interests held by the different NHS boards and trusts and prevents itself being dragged into work prioritization arguments. According to recent reports CSC is expected to have completed its millennium bug fix work by the end of 1998.
