A group of NHS trusts is to spend £300 million on a new clinical information system that will serve 29 healthcare groups across the south of the UK.

The consortium, which is being led by NHS Camden Primary Care Trust, is looking for suppliers to offer hosting, reporting and integration services to its members through a framework. That will include building reporting functionality, integration, maintenance, change management and hosting.

A contract notice for the construction of the clinical information system, which will last for four years, was posted in the Official Journal of the European Union today. The system will be used by the Trusts’ community, child and mental health services, and is divided into three lots.

The first lot covers the software development and deployment, including data migration from Trusts’ existing systems. The second lot covers hosting and service management, and is expected to "provide a robust, secure and flexible infrastructure to support the current and future needs of the participating Trusts," according to the tender document. The third lot covers the reporting functionality of the new service.

In other public sector news, the Cabinet Office and the Government Procurement Service offered some more information about a £1 billion IT service framework it announced earlier this week.

"Some of the services covered by the procurement are new and some will replace those provided through expired or expiring arrangements," a Cabinet Office spokesperson said.

Geographical information systems, software application solutions and parts of the ICT consultancy and delivery framework were given as examples of expiring contracts which would be replaced in the new framework.

The Cabinet Office said the potentially huge procurement is "designed to ensure a balanced supplier base, including SME niche providers, capable of delivering innovative service solutions for the public sector, and achieve best value for the taxpayer."