Ascribe Ltd 

Ascribe Ltd (formerly Ascribe PLC) is a leading healthcare company that, as a Group, develops and markets software solutions supporting patient, clinical and business processes to Primary & Secondary healthcare providers in the UK and overseas.

Ascribe plc was launched and floated upon the AIM section of the London Stock Exchange in December 2004; the company was formed by ASC Computer Software Ltd. As of February 18th 2009, the company has left the London Stock Exchange and has re-registered as a private company.

Since its inception, Ascribe has acquired an additional nine companies and businesses and now employs a workforce of over 270 personnel in the UK, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand & Kenya. A history of the companies and businesses that comprise Ascribe is listed below.

Group Overview:

• ASC Computer Software Ltd
• Protechnic Exeter Ltd
• Footman-Walker Associates Ltd
• Park Systems Ltd
• Arkive Computing Ltd
• Barwick Systems Ltd
• "Jade Health" division & products from Jade Software Corporation
• HE Information Systems Ltd
• Scorpio Information Systems Ltd
• WCI Healthcare
• iClinix

ASC Computer Software Ltd

ASC Computer Software Ltd was established in 1984 by a Pharmacist (Stephen Critchlow) and Doctor (Chris Jones) to meet the clinical computing needs of the healthcare market; they initially focussed on the needs of hospital pharmacy departments. The partnership evolved to the formation of a limited company in 1989. The first commercial sale was a clinical version of the ASC pharmacy software in DOS, to Burnley in 1992. In 1995, the windows version of the software was launched. ASC Australia was formed in 1996 and went live with its first hospital, The Royal Darwin, Northern Territory in the same year. The first New Zealand site was Taranaki, going live in 1997.

From early goals such as the creation a centralised prescription database, ASC progressed to develop electronic prescribing and hospital pharmacy systems. ASC products are now available as web-based solutions, enabling hospital pharmacies to extend their services throughout their facilities. Electronic Prescribing, paper-less nurse administration, parenteral nutrition, stock control, oncology prescribing and substance misuse systems are all modules now available to modern medical centres.

Protechnic Exeter Ltd

Established in 1979, Protechnic Computers quickly earned a reputation for providing high quality, innovative and cost-effective solutions to the problems faced by businesses, Health and Education. In 2000, Protechnic acquired Exeter Systems. Exeter Systems has been at the forefront of GP Computing for over 20 years and earned a reputation for providing quality software solutions with a flair for flexibility and innovation. 

The Company fostered long-term relationships and encouraged continuity of personnel enjoying an enviable record for providing quality support and training services. The company has always encouraged a strong emphasis on user involvement with active local user groups and national user group meetings. In addition, practising GPs have been at the forefront of the company decision-making since the introduction of the Exeter GP System as part of the Micros for GPs project in the early 1980s.

One of the company's flagship products is ePEX, a modern integrated solution designed to support the inter-agency needs of the modern primary healthcare community including Community Nursing, PAMS, Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, Child Health, Elderly Services and Social Care. In 2006, the ePEX messaging engine was approved by Connecting for Health for Choose and Book compliance.

Footman-Walker Associates Ltd

Acquired 23rd May 2005
Footman-Walker was first incorporated as a company in 1985.  It grew from an initial development contracted by Burroughs Computing (later acquired by Unisys) to supply a computerised records system for the A&E department at Derbyshire Royal Infirmary.  Footman-Walker continued the development of this first product to a stage of having 13 sites in the south east of England.  In 1990 the company was approached by St Thomas’s hospital to develop a new A&E system on the new technology appearing at the time – Windows!  St Thomas’s started a long line of implementations of the AEII product, which allowed the company to grow to over 60 sites by 1999.

Park Systems Ltd

Acquired 22nd June 2005
Park Systems was founded in 1981 by Community Pharmacists and rapidly expanded to become one of today's leading producers of top quality computerised Pharmacy EPoS and PMR Labelling equipment as used in all aspects of retail pharmacy throughout the U.K. and worldwide. The high standards of quality control and production is enhanced by a service department providing a fast and economical maintenance facility.

Arkive Computing Ltd

Acquired 22nd June, 2005.
This company provides the hub for the ongoing development and support of our GP Clinical information system, Exeter.

Barwick Systems Ltd

Acquired March 15th, 2006
Barwick Systems Limited is a software house established in the early 1980's. The company successfully develops solutions for Hospitals in the areas of Patient Administration Systems (PAS) and Medical Equipment Management And Traceability Systems (E-MAT). The E-MAT software application provides a comprehensive management tool enabling EBME/Medical Physics staff to trace equipment and manage the notification of faults, repairs, maintenance, servicing and electrical safety (PAT) tests.

"Jade Health" division & products from Jade Software Corporation

Acquired May 11th, 2006
Established in 1978, Jade Software Corporation is an information technology research and development organisation, with more than 25 years' experience supplying enterprise scale software solutions to large businesses and government organisations. The company developed a Healthcare solutions division, referred to as Jade Healthcare, and this was acquired by Ascribe in 2006. This acquisition further enhanced the Group's presence in the Australian healthcare market.

H.E. Information Systems

Acquired June 30th, 2006
H.E. Information Systems was founded by Hospital Engineering Ltd to focus upon the on-going development of clinical IT healthcare solutions based on the company's Clinical and Management Information System installed in over 35 hospitals with over 3500 users.

The company's flagship product is Enterprise CaMIS (eCaMIS), it provides comprehensive functionality for hospital administrative and clinical staff, in a modern setting - this comprehensive Patient Administration System (PAS) is targeted directly at providing the basis for, and core functionality of, the Electronic Patient Record (EPR). eCaMIS is focused on meeting the EPR requirements outlined in the Government White Paper 'Information for Health' (December 1999). The suite represents a fusion of clinical and administrative systems, exploiting the power of Desktop solutions, and encompassing Web and Speech Recognition technologies.

Scorpio Information Systems

Acquired October 22nd 2007
Scorpio Information Systems Ltd (Scorpio) is leading supplier of clinical systems for secondary care and clinical processes which are shared with primary care and the community. The clinical knowledge for their systems has been acquired as a result of an NHS/Private-sector partnership between Scorpio and Southampton University Hospitals Trust and enhanced as a result of their relationships with leading UK Trusts. The company was founded by Alan Hales in 1999 and has developed a range of hospital departmental systems, ranging from Endoscopy Reporting Systems to Maternity, and Cancer Care. All the modules are able to feed information into a Hospital’s Patient Administration System and contribute to each patient’s Electronic Health Record (EHR).

Our Endoscopy system has been designed by clinicians to support prompt & rapid generation of GRS (Global Rating Scale) and JAG audit information and is suitable for large or small sites. If you are looking to replace an older endoscribe system, please contact Ascribe and ask about Scorpio Endoscopy.

WCI Healthcare

Acquired 26 September 2008
WCI Healthcare has over 20 years' experience in delivering high quality consultancy and implementation resource to the NHS and offers a wide range of professional services.

Ascribe will benefit from the expertise of over 30 trained members of staff joining from WCI Healthcare, who will help to deliver integrated IT solutions from the Group's growing sales pipeline. The WCI Healthcare team are experts in project implementation, particularly providing integration and consultancy expertise for larger enterprise wide solutions.

iClinix

Acquired 3rd July, 2009
An international leader in clinical and pharmacy management applications, iClinix designs and builds software solutions for information driven health care providers. Leading-edge agile technology is underpinned by the company's expertise and experience in clinical, pharmaceuticals, and health care environments.

In both the public and private sector, iClinix has developed an innovative clinically-focused intelligence-based approach, and theri systems are helping to reduce errors, accidents, and injury to patients. iClinix provides measureable productivity and efficiency gains through access to real time information.