NHS spends over £1 million on Apple products
pharmafile | September 5, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Apple, NHS England, ipad, iphone
NHS England has spent more than £1.2 million on Apple’s tablets and smartphones since it was set up two years’ ago.
This is according to new figures released by the Department of Health in response to a written question from Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Denton and Reddish.
These figures show that NHS England, which has been in charge of effectively running the NHS since 2012, has spent £1.21 million on Apple products, with the vast majority of this going on iPhones.
Given the high expense of these handsets, the £1.05 million spent on iPhones has seen NHS England staff receive just 2,300 handsets, given their price of £456 per phone.
In the current financial year it has spent £68,400 on 150 iPhones and £23,000 on 50 iPads, according to the DH’s figures.
The data also reveal that the Care Quality Commission has purchased more than 201 iPads since 2011-2012 at a cost of £113,506, spending £32,571 already this year on 73 iPads.
Deputy chair of the GPC’s IT subcommittee Dr Grant Ingrams told GP magazine Pulse that the unit price was ‘startling’ considering the size of the orders being made.
He explains: “I couldn’t find anywhere, even going to your most expensive [department store] you’d find a better price, and for the volume, they should be negotiating a huge discount for that.”
Ingrams adds that it was important staff had the equipment to work on the move, but explained that other phones were also simple to set up with NHS Mail, and equally met its security standards.
He tells Pulse: “[iPhones] are dead easy to set up for NHS Mail, although most smartphones are. Some are easier, iPhones and the Windows-based phones you just point it towards the account and it sets it up and automatically enforces the security [standards].”
Ben Adams
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