Find a TenderAwarded without competitionContract award notice
Published 4 Mar 2025, 11:05 GMT

Official UK procurement notice

EPES, CFU and Ophthalmic applications Support, Upgrade and hardware Refresh

Official notice

Authority: Business Services Organisation (Central government)

Direct award
Awarded value£6,580,186published award · exc. VAT
Award in standstill 4 Mar 2025no call for competition
Award (standstill) to ENTSERV UK LIMITED

What is being bought

Published requirement description

In June 2008, the Electronic Prescribing and Eligibility System (EPES) went live. The objective of the project was to capture prescription information from Community Pharmacies into a central EPES Database. This system was introduced to speed up pharmacy re-payments, allow for closer scrutiny of the prescribing and dispensing process, and reduce lost income through patients falsely claiming to be in receipt of a qualifying Social Security benefit.

Following its successful launch, EPES was extended to support Dental and Ophthalmic claims processing, the DOP system. This DAC will ensure continuity of services for the Family Practitioner System Team.

Failure to provision the extended support places BSO at serious risk of an application failure from which we would be unable to recover from. Contractor payments of approximately £576m per annum would be defaulted on and there would also be a risk of fraud as it would be impossible to process prescriptions and estimate payments manually.

DXC Technology will support the EPES systems for BSO. The scope of this Contract includes:

  • Planning and project management.
  • Procurement and support of 8 new workstations and scanners.
  • Assistance from DXC and Kodak Alaris to setup new workstations with the Kodak Alaris Kodak Info Input scanning software.
  • Health checks.
  • Perform renewal of the existing labor support contract.
  • Extension of Kodak support contract
  • Recompile of code to make it supportable.
  • ​Upgrade to Windows 11.

£1,080,186 has been previously directed awarded to DXC for support, maintenance, and upgrade works to support the EPES system. It is our intention to complete a further Direct Award to the value of £5,500,000.

The lotProcurement structure

single lot · no lot value published

Procedure terms & legal framework

From the official record
Procedure method
Direct award
Legal basis
UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
Notice status
Awarded without competition
Procurement threshold
Unspecified in notice
Regulatory regime
Standard
Commercial structure
Stand-alone contract (no framework)
Competition type
Direct award (no call for competition)
GPA / WTO covered
Unspecified in notice
Recurring procurement
Unspecified in notice
First published
4 Mar 2025, 11:05 GMT
Last source update
4 Mar 2025, 12:18 GMT
Authority reference
DAC20001
FTS notice number
2025/S 000-007831
Latest notice
Contract award notice (UK6)
Delivery area
Northern Ireland (UKN)
Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-04e93c Find a Tender
Why no open competition
Single Suppliers Intellectual Property Exclusive Rights
Published justification

DXC are the incumbent contractors and own the Intellectual Property Rights on the software.​

Failure to provision the extended support places BSO at serious risk of an application failure from which we would be unable to recover from. Contractor payments of approximately £576m per annum would be defaulted on and there would also be a risk of fraud as it would be impossible to process prescriptions and estimate payments manually.

How it was run

Official notice
Submission deadline
—

Timeline

4 Mar 2025 → 13 Mar 2025 · 2 dates
  1. Notice published
    4 Mar 2025, 12:18 GMT
  2. Standstill ends
    13 Mar 2025, 23:59 GMT

Notice history

3 events · 2 releases on Find a Tender · since 4 Mar 2025
  1. Transparency notice published
    4 Mar 2025, 11:05 GMT
    UK5
  2. Contract award notice published
    4 Mar 2025, 12:18 GMT
    UK6
  3. Contract signature expected
    31 Mar 2025, 23:59 BST
    scheduled

Commercial outcome & contract awards

Published awards, contracts and bid statistics, not a forecast
Awards 1
Awarded value £6,580,1861 award exc. VAT
Awarded toValueDateStatus
ENTSERV UK LIMITED1 Apr 2025 – 31 Dec 2026 · up to 31 Dec 2030Extensions: This DAC is to allow support to be provided until systems can be replaced. This support cannot be provided by any other supplier as DXC have the exclusive rights to the software.​ BSO ITS wish to enter into a one year Contract with the option to extend for a further four x one year extensions. The ePharmacy Programme was supposed to provide replacement systems for EPES, but this has been significantly delayed due to budgetary restrictions. The procurement of replacement systems is likely to be begin in 2026 with a proposed implementation date of quarter three in the Financial Year of 2030.£6,580,1864 Mar 2025standstill to 13 Mar 2025Standstill

Contracting authority & participating public bodies

Business Services Organisation

Contracting authorityPublic authority - central governmentNorthern Irish devolved regulations apply GB-PPON: PCQH-8657-NGMT 2 Franklin Street, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT2 8DQContact email

Bidders & participating suppliers

1 commercial party on the notice
  • ENTSERV UK LIMITEDAwarded supplierGB-COH: 00053419GB-PPON: PGCJ-9313-QJLY Royal Pavilion, Aldershot, South East, GU11 1PZContact email

Official documents & specifications (2)

Official links; attachments are not copied

Notices published for this procedure

  • Contract award notice awardContract award noticeUK6Contract award notice on Find a Tender
  • Transparency notice awardTransparency noticeUK5Transparency notice on Find a Tender