CSC and the UK government have reached a truce over the company's central patient database cock-up: both sides have agreed to a more flexible contract until 2016 and to shelve any potential litigation.

The corporation and the Department of Health (DoH) have been at the negotiating table for months now over the bungled delivery of CSC's £2.9bn Lorenzo system, a health care record system.

Under the terms of the deal, the integrator still has access to up to £1.9bn in patient database orders from NHS trusts, but there is no guarantee it will bag them.

CSC said: "The agreement includes full mutual releases of all claims between the parties through the date of the agreement. Under the new agreement the NHS will not be subject to trust volume commitment and CSC has agreed to non-exclusive deployment rights in its designated regions.

"Trusts will receive ongoing managed services from CSC for a period of five years from the date of Lorenzo deployment by a trust, provided deployment is complete or substantially complete by July 2016."

CSC will pocket £68m from the government for work delivered to date but this pales into insignificance compared to the initial size of the project signed in 2002.

The DoH said CSC's one time "exclusive rights to be the only provider of clinical IT systems in the North, Midlands and East of England have been removed".

It added that NHS organisations will also no longer be beholden to volume commitments to use Lorenzo and "will have the freedom to decide what IT systems are most suitable for their needs".

CSC will remain responsible for deploying Lorenzo Electronic Patient Record system currently in use by 10 NHS bodies in the three regions of England. ®