The contract was awarded in June to the EY-led group, which includes Belfast IT firm Kainos and European electronic health record provider Better Care.
It comes as experts warn over-reliance on external contractors means the HSE risks failing to build its own technological capacity.
SCRs are a digital record of a patient’s health status aggregated from various sources, according to the HSE. In 2023, the health service told the Sunday Independent it estimated the cost of a national rollout of the system at between €20m and €25m.
EY also provides senior executives to the health service and is a significant provider of consultancy services to the HSE.
In May, a response to a Parliamentary Question by Labour TD Alan Kelly found that the HSE had spent €72.7m with EY in 2023 and 2024.
Last October, the Sunday Independent revealed that four out of an eight-strong health service national productivity and savings taskforce was made up of EY consultants, headed up by a senior consultant costing a daily rate of €1,449.
Former Department of Health deputy chief medical officer Ronan Glynn now heads up the EY health division. Ex-EY staff also worked in senior IT functions such as chief information security officer in recent years.
Professor Anthony Staines, who lectures on health systems at Dublin City University, said the HSE isn’t building up its own tech and digital capacity sufficiently, particularly ahead of national electronic health record procurement contracts projected to cost more than €2bn.
“Staff training and engagement can account for up to 80pc of large IT contract costs. Outside consultants cost a fortune and mostly don’t build capacity in your organisation,” he said.
“They’re best suited to something you seldom do, or that’s very expensive to do. The HSE’s IT and tech capacity is very poor.”
He questioned whether public tender processes should be more accommodating to SMEs.
“We have a vibrant digital health sector, made up of very good people that seem to have to make money abroad, but can’t get contracts here.
“Tenders should be written in a way that is more open to SMEs. Required standards aren’t always a procurement condition, while culturally, tech and IT is often designed for hospital managers rather than patients and frontline medical staff.”
A spokesman for the HSE said: “We have built significant additional internal capacity in the digital space in recent years. As with all public healthcare systems, we must tender for and implement digital healthcare solutions, as our primary role is not as a developer.
“We place these tenders on the open market for any company to respond to in what is a heavily regulated environment. These digital contracts are not traditional management consultancy ones. The HSE saved €33m on management consulting services in 2024.”
Kainos and Better Care did not respond to requests for comment. An EY spokesman said it does not comment on client matters.
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