Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) - Case Study - eXceeding
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Exceeding

Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH)

Transitioning a life-saving outsourced IT contract to a new service provider

About Cambridge University Hospitals.

Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH comprises of Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the Rosie Hospital in Cambridge. The Trust provides accessible, high-quality healthcare for the local people of Cambridge, together with specialist services, dealing with rare or complex conditions, for a regional, national and international population.

Overview.

CUH lacked a detailed understanding of their existing fully outsourced IT contract. As a result, they were finding it extremely difficult to negotiate commercial terms to exit the contract.

CUH had taken the decision to move to a new IT service provider. They were understandable cost-conscious, but simply didn’t have sufficient resource available to manage such a complex, multifaceted project.

We appointed a full team to manage the process from start to finish, including exit negotiations and the transition to the new supplier.

The IT delivered life saving services, so system failure, or outage simply wasn’t an option. Methodical planning, with back out strategies and lots of out-of-hours migrations, were going to be key to the project being a success.

The challenge.

We identified 3 key challenges which needed to be addressed as part of the project:

Complex contract negotiations
The current contract was lacking in detail, due to a management change, which had resulted in non-enforcement of service delivery SLAs and KPIs

Critical service provision
The outsourced IT services to be transitioned provided lifesaving services to patients so system failure was not an option

Lack of resource
CUH had very little resource with the experience, or capability to manage such a negotiation, or transition to a new service provider

The solution.

As well as helping CUH to negotiate its exit strategy, eXceeding was able to provide a flexible, onsite resource solution to manage the entire process to transition to the new service provider.

The project was delivered over three key stages:

  1. Working with the Head of IT and the CUH Board, eXceeding advised and developed the contract exit negotiation strategy and assisted with the execution.
  2. eXceeding then provided a highly capable and experienced team of onsite consultants to manage the transition. The team included a Program Manager, two Project Managers, a Commercial Negotiator, a Service Delivery Manager and a Systems Architect. This agile resource model flexed as the transition activity hit peaks and troughs.
  3. Due to the high stakes nature of the project the team, and eXceeding’s senior management, held regular reviews to ensure project governance and best practice was adhered to at all stages.

 

Highlights.

5-year contract
Longer-term engagement to provide expert support

Cost savings
of over £4 million annually

Efficient project management
Delivered on time and on budget

Continuity of service
No detrimental impact on patient care, during project delivery

The future.

CUH now has a much more flexible and agile IT outsourced contract, that meets the current and future needs of the Trust and its patients.

The new contract has sufficient and appropriate processes, procedures, SLAs, key performance indicators (KPIs) and management toolsets to ensure the new service provider delivers against the contractual obligations. CUH has already engaged eXceeding on other projects due to the quality of services delivered.