Northern Ireland's shameful anniversary

In May I pointed out that, under the management of the European Centre for Connected Health, the process for appointing a provider for the Remote Telemonitoring Northern Ireland (RTNI) Managed Service first announced a year earlier was grinding on painfully slowly, at the expense of the bidding companies. (Northern Ireland’s ‘unhappy first birthday’ approaches)

The four short listed consortia were eventually announced in June 2009.

At the end of August we passed another ‘milestone’ anniversary – that of the posting of the OJEU notice, which formally started the tendering process.

Given that any one of the four short listed consortia could probably make a reasonable fist of delivering the required service and that with every week which passes more and more patients who could benefit are not doing so, it is shameful that more progress has not been made and one has to ask why.