Emis Share Discussion Threads

[wad collector] 11/5/2018 10:43

That's a healthy looking recovery chart. Wonder why...

[bend1pa] 02/5/2018 18:20

Are there any IT systems which don't screw up at one time or another. TSB bank customers were frozen out of their online bank accounts for a couple of days recently, and 12 days later they're still not functioning fully. I have a Nationwide Flexaccount, usually very reliable. A few days ago I set up 2 standing orders due to be paid monthly on the 1st of the month. They've only just left my account today.

Just signed in to my GP appointments via Patient Access, which is an EMIS platform. Working fine.

[grahamburn] 30/4/2018 17:56

Which EMIS product/software are you involved with?

Trust you have discussed the issues direct with EMIS, as posting on here seems a roundabout way of contacting them (doubt they read advfn regularly, if at all). Maybe you haven't had a satisfactory response.

However, if your issues common and reported by other users, then your post is undoubtedly useful information for shareholders or prospective shareholders.

[wad collector] 30/4/2018 16:48

C'mon EMIS sort out your system ; beset with freezes and crashs today. I could fall out of love with your system.....

[wad collector] 13/4/2018 22:37

Another strong close at the end of the week. The share price seems to be crawling back to respectability.

[123prezzie] 13/4/2018 11:56

Wrong site, sorry

[wad collector] 22/3/2018 12:59

£8 seems to be holding despite wider market drop. Promising.

[bend1pa] 14/3/2018 15:27

A somewhat weird reaction to the results which were poor to say the least. EMIS does look ex-growth now, despite the predictable optimistic noises by the CEO. On the other hand the cash flow does have the more positive info - £14m net cash (2016 was net debt), free cash flow £37.9m (2016 £32.1m), Div easily covered by FCF, which is more than can be said for much larger and better known companies having to borrow to maintain their divs. (Glaxo, GNK MKS, BP etc). The £11.2m legal cost settlement with NHSD is presumed by the CEO to be a one-off. Let's hope that's the case. Otherwise despite the disappointing results - a 56% drop in net profit yoy - the strong cash flow sheet provides a financial cushion for now.

[wad collector] 14/3/2018 08:51

Results out this am , market seems to like them a bit. Some contrasting numbers according to my quick skim read. Good that the divi is up , but bad that it is not covered . Good that the GP market share is up slightly but bad that it will drop with the loss of the Welsh contract.
Good that the breach seems solitary but bad that the cost is higher than previously estimated.

Bit more detail on the breach hit;
"
Unfortunately, the discovery in early 2018 of a failure to meet certain service levels and reporting obligations with our customer NHS Digital (NHSD), has had a significant negative impact on our 2017 results. A provision of GBP11.2m has been made to cover the potential financial settlement and costs to remedy these past breaches.

We have been undertaking a review of service level agreements (SLAs) with all of our customers across the Group and to date have found no other material issues. As a result, we believe the NHSD related breach to be a serious, but isolated incident."

I see that is not the "upper single digit millions" hit that was previously estimate. 11.2 is more than 10!

[wad collector] 08/3/2018 16:24

Slow crawl back to a tenner? As long as no more big contracts lost...

[wad collector] 21/2/2018 12:34

Some more detail from NHS Wales;

To: GP practices using EMIS computer systems
9 February 2018
Dear Colleague
GMS Systems Framework Contract Procurement
Following on from our letter dated 29th January 2018 we are writing to you with more
information about the decision regarding EMIS Health Ltd.
We recognise that changing supplier is a very significant undertaking and it is disappointing
that EMIS Health Ltd submitted a response that fell far short of the requirements despite
considerable dialogue at every stage explaining why their proposed changes to the NHS Wales
requirements would not be acceptable. This position was not consistent with the responses
from Vision (InPractice Systems Ltd) and Microtest Ltd, who were appointed onto the
Framework.
The procurement evaluation focussed on ensuring that each supplier offered a system that
met the minimum functional requirements, in addition to the wider support, service levels,
integration with the Welsh technical platform, affordability, value for money and very
importantly the acceptance of risk. These requirements reflect the current GP Practice needs
as well as commitment to meet future developments. The requirements that EMIS Health Ltd
did not commit to meet are broadly those which they are already signed up to within their
current contract with NHS Wales.
Please be assured that NHS Wales offered every opportunity to all suppliers to meet the
published requirements. This included awareness of the likely consequences of not fully
meeting the requirements and not agreeing to the standard terms and conditions, which are
used extensively across the UK for major IT contracts.
In broad terms the changes EMIS Health Ltd requested would, in the judgement of the GMS
IM & T Programme Board's Procurement Executive Committee, have left no significant levers
to remedy system failures and malfunctions in an appropriate timescale leading to
unacceptable risk transfer, both financial and professional, to practices (and NHS Wales).
In addition, at a time when Welsh Government and the BMA are looking at a possibly radical
revision of the GMS contract, EMIS Health Ltd were unwilling to sign up to any mandatory
system changes required to support any such new contract. This was clearly unacceptable in
terms of strategic changes to make the GMS contract fit for the future. Lastly a number of key
add-ons including full DocMan functionality would have been at extra cost to the practice
rather than included as per the agreed requirements.
Cumulatively, there were too many areas where EMIS Health Ltd only partially met the
requirements or made too many changes to the contract drafting, which had a detrimental
effect on, or increased the risk position of, NHS Wales. Further information is available in the
accompanying Frequently Asked Questions. However, key areas of concern related to:
 EMIS Health Ltd would not commit to the required service levels and resolution of
system problems
 EMIS Health Ltd reserved the right to charge extra and defer delivery of a number of
core functional requirements
 EMIS Health Ltd reserved the right to reject requests for any future changes in the
system
 EMIS Health Ltd imposed restrictions on NHS Wales’ ability to manage the supplier to
deliver the required availability and performance
At this stage we want to provide further reassurance that resources will be available
throughout the transition period to help each practice change supplier. We will also consider
the impact of any third party software compatibility issues to try and mitigate any
disadvantage to practices.
A Stakeholder Reference Group will be established to help develop the support package and
agree the best mechanisms to help practices through the migration process. If you are
interested in participating in this group or have any further queries regarding the
procurement please email [e-mail].

[wad collector] 20/2/2018 13:21

From 3 weeks ago ;

Give shares in EMIS Group a miss, said the Sunday Times' Inside the City column. The AIM-listed software specialist, which was founded by two doctors in 1987, supplier software services including those for keeping patient records, drug ordering and connecting different primary care services, as well as setting up GPs' websites, IT infrastructure and web hosting. The balance sheet had net cash of £14.0m cash and is a strong cash generator.

Earlier in January, however, EMIS revealed that chief executive Andy Thorburn, who joined last May, had conducted a review of customer and product support processes and identified "a failure to meet certain service levels and reporting obligations" with a GP product supplied on a contract with NHS Digital. The financial impact was estimated "in the order of upper single digits of millions of pounds" and said the company will update the market as appropriate.

Analysts at house broker Numis said the key issues have been uncovered and that it is unlikely it was done for personal financial gain. However, the analysts predict rectifying the issue will result in higher costs, not ideal in a market where the company faces tough competition and the ongoing NHS cash squeeze. There are also "curious signs" in its accounts, says the column, with outstanding receivables, where revenue has been booked but cash has not yet been received, rising to 15% of revenue in 2016 from 3% five years before.

[wad collector] 05/2/2018 16:39

hxxps://www.gponline.com/half-gp-practices-wales-face-system-switch/article/1455838

"The changes EMIS wanted to implement would have put practices at unacceptable risk of disruption, and included no levers to protect practices operationally if the system were to collapse.'



I see it was Vision and Microtest who won the contract. I suspect there are a lot of unspoken agendas at play here.
Losing customers with that statement is not good for EMIS's image even if the profit margins are less in Wales.

[boll] 30/1/2018 23:06

Usually this kind of statement occurs when a competitor has bought the business at an uncompetive rate so it’s probably better to lose it rather than run with something marginally profitable

[gopher] 30/1/2018 19:23

Grahamburn

Believe me - EMIS will have wanted to retain this business. The question is why they were not able to do so. Not sure who their replacement is but I can guess the reasons - integration either with Hospitals, Councils or both.

[grahamburn] 30/1/2018 09:27

Only query is did EMIS really want the business in Wales (ie was it viable)?

Note the reference to "margin significantly below the Group average".

Maybe EMIS didn't try that hard to retain it.

[eagle eye] 30/1/2018 08:02

Looks like the business moat isn't as wide as I thought:

Update re: NHS Wales GP framework agreement

EMIS Group plc has received confirmation from NHS Wales that it has not been chosen as a preferred vendor for the next primary care framework agreement in Wales, following a planned procurement review process which began during the first quarter of 2017, as previously reported by the Group.

As at 30 June 2017, EMIS provided GP services to 195 practices in Wales. The Group's total UK estate at that date was 5,147 GP practices. Annual revenues from the existing framework agreement with NHS Wales are approximately £2 million at a margin significantly below the Group average.

This decision will require that EMIS Web users in Wales are transitioned to a new provider via a phased process throughout 2019 and 2020, to be agreed with NHS Wales. EMIS will continue to generate revenues on a reducing basis until the transition process is complete.

[bend1pa] 25/1/2018 16:49

Decided to buy a few shares just before closing and managed to get sub 770p. I still think EMIS are a little overvalued, considering they are pretty well ex-growth now. But relative to the general market they no longer look that expensive, especially when compared to how over-valued they were for a long period when the PER was in the high 20s.

I don't think we'll see this back in the 900s for a while, but the high 800s seems achievable over the next year or so, pending no disasters.

[wad collector] 23/1/2018 12:49

Some good questions in that blog ;
"I would like to receive more information about the nature of the contracts that have resulted in the large potential liability. I understand you are still assessing the potential liability but the announcement should really have spelled out the nature of the commitments that seem to have been made by the company previously, and which have not been adhered to. I am also surprised that such a large liability is being announced when no apparent claim has been received (at least none is indicated), and no financial loss to the third party concerned is being reported.

I also question why the potential liability and risks associated with the relevant contracts were not disclosed in the Annual Report for the year ending December 2016. Indeed there is extensive discussion of “risk” in the business in that document and the risks the business face were apparently reviewed in that year by the board of directors. The risks of all kinds were generally reported as “low”, when it seems that a major undisclosed risk was being run.

One could also question why the audit by KPMG failed to identify this apparently major defect in the company’s systems and accounting for the liability. Did they not review this aspect of the company’s activities?

Lastly there is no indication in the announcement as to how long this failure which has caused the potential liability has been going on. Perhaps you could answer that question, and also indicate whether it may be necessary to restate past accounts.”

[sharesoc] 21/1/2018 10:57

There is a recent blog post on Emis available here:

[mw8156] 18/1/2018 23:01

would have thought that private equity might now be tempted to pounce on EMIS; they might feel they could do a better management job in a company with a commanding market share of gp's software.

[gopher] 18/1/2018 22:09

Not to serious imo but embarrassing for Company. The way these contracts are calculated can be complicated and EMIS have made a mistake

[mw8156] 18/1/2018 20:42

According to the Yorkshire Post report, the problem relates to low level software glitches such as patients receiving multiple SMS text messages and reminders about their GP appointments-I'm thankful that I don't have a mobile phone!
also mentions that the market for software professionals in Leeds is v competitive so they may have had recruitment/retention problems?
doesn't sound too bad at all on the face of it but there is bound to be some reputational damage and the full extent of the problem may not yet have be known or have been revealed but so far reasonably encouraging?

[wad collector] 18/1/2018 19:36

Try to take it easy. We won't be chasing them as 1. The problem is usually just slowness in the system and frequent freezing - it is hard to quantify .
and better 2. We don't pay the bill; our CCG does!

Mikett agree on the latter , not sure about the former ; the hassle of changing also means that changing to EMIS is also a big step and some areas are dominated by other systems. When I first started using EMIS there were about 70 different GP systems in the UK.