Wednesday 6th January, 2016

The Department of Health (DH) will now act as a PEPPOL Authority for the NHS in England, its responsibilities will be finalised by April 2016. The DH will also provide a PEPPOL roll out, enabling NHS Trusts to become PEPPOL compliant by 2020.

In May 2014, the DH published an eProcurement strategy, a key element included an eProcurement mandate requiring the use of GS1 coding and PEPPOL messaging standards for the NHS and its suppliers.

The DH will also ensure compliance with the PEPPOL legal framework for access point providers that provide services to NHS, protecting the trustworthiness of the PEPPOL Transport Infrastructure, its model and operations.

Steve Graham, eProcurement Lead at the Department of Health, said; "Following the successful completion of the first demonstration of technology, showing how PEPPOL will work in the NHS environment, we are moving ahead in our plan for wide adoption".

"We are currently working through a selection process to award central funding to six GS1 and PEPPOL demonstrator trusts who will begin implementation of the PEPPOL standards in January 2016."

In addition, the Department of Health will implement the following actions, by early 2016:

• Set up a centralised PEPPOL SMP, listing all NHS Trusts and suppliers capable of receiving PEPPOL messages.
• Initiate a framework agreement for the provision of PEPPOL Access Point services from which NHS Trusts can select their preferred access point provider.