The UK’s Department of Health and IT services giant CSC have reached a new agreement over the troubled electronic health records contract which means the latter’s Lorenzo system still may be used, as long as NHS Trusts want it.

The DoH said the agreement involves a "hugely improved settlement for the NHS", which means that local Trusts greater choice over whether they want to use CSC’s Lorenzo electronic health records software, in line with the government’s decentralised NHS IT strategy.

"The agreement we have negotiated gives choice to Trusts about taking this software, rather than imposing the decision on NHS organisations," a DoH statement reads.

CSC said that new agreeement, due to be signed as a contract later this month, will see the company additional Lorenzo implementations, adding to the 10 deployed successfully to date, with options for more where demand materializes.

"CSC is confident that Lorenzo’s modern technology base and the fact that it has been specifically designed in collaboration with the NHS, should result in further demand in the future," it said.

Last month, CSC told investors that it would have to write down up to $1.49 billion – 40% of its market value – as a result of the renegotiated contract with the NHS. This is the entire amount it has invested in the contract to date.

Commenting on the announcement this morning, TechMarketView analyst Tola Sargeant remarked that "it’s far from clear that the NHS, or us as taxpayers, will get value for money from the agreement. 

"The version of the Lorenzo software that it’s deploying does not have as much functionality as planned, far fewer Trusts are committed to receive it and rumour has it the contract has been extended by a further year to 2016," she wrote.