Canadian firm's UK arm wins £47.7m deal to build England's single patient record

The UK arm of a Canadian IT company has won a one-year contract worth £47.7m to design and build England's single patient record, HSJ reported on 12 November 2026¹. The award makes it the first major supplier appointed to the government's flagship IT programme¹. The report seen does not name the company.

What the programme involves

The Department of Health and Social Care plans to bring each person's health and social care information into one secure record that GPs, hospital doctors, social care staff and patients themselves can see². The Health Bill gives the Secretary of State powers to set out in regulations who can and who must share data with the record, who can view it and how the rules will be enforced².

DHSC has set a staged timetable²:

• by March 2027, clinicians in England should have better access to records for at least 80% of patients, through connecting existing shared care records²;
• from 2028, all patients should be able to see a core set of their data through the NHS App²;
• by 2030, the whole population of England should have access to the full range of data in the record².

Maternity and frailty are the first care pathways, with cancer and mental health among those due over the following two years². The department says the record will connect to existing electronic patient records and shared care records wherever possible rather than replace them².

What it means for the market

The contract is small next to the scale of the programme, and it runs for one year¹. The more important signal for suppliers is the procurement model. DHSC has said the record will be delivered through contracts with multiple suppliers, with no single supplier dominating². When the department published that position, it said no decisions had been made on who those suppliers would be². This first award therefore opens a series of contracts rather than settling the market.

Because the record is meant to sit on top of existing systems, electronic patient record vendors and the operators of regional shared care records have a stake in how it connects to their products². Role-based access, security controls and data governance are built into the specification, which will shape what integrators must deliver².

For research and analytics buyers, the bill creates no new legal route to use the record for planning, commissioning or research². Any organisation that wants the data for purposes other than direct care must use existing legal bases and governance processes².

Caveats

HSJ's account is behind a paywall, and the supplier's name, the scope of the work and the procurement route are not in the material available¹. The Health Bill still has to pass through Parliament, which DHSC says will scrutinise it at every stage². The first deadline in the department's plan is March 2027, when at least 80% of patients should have their records more widely visible to clinicians².