It will now work closely with Canon (UK), The Danwood Group, Heidelberg Graphic Equipment, Imagistics International, NRG Group (UK) and Xerox (UK) on a range of projects for the NHS.

Heidelberg Graphics national sales manager for digital Chris Matthews said the firm had secured a place for the first time in the agreement following a tender process.

Heidelberg will have the opportunity to sell into both central and local government, and some 300 local NHS Trusts.

The equipment available will include digital machines such as NexPress, Digimaster 9110 and 9150 and a variety of software packages.

The deal, agreed by the Office of Government Commerce and the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency (NHS PASA), will be managed by OGCs trading arm, OGCbuying.solutions.

Established in April 2000, OGCbuying.solutions was set up as an office of HM Treasury to achieve the best value for money in procurement issues and commercial activities for commercial departments.

It has set itself the target of reducing the estimated annual 600m spend across all government offices on print and copier services.

It intends to save 50m on the NHS in the next four-year period on products and services by reducing the amount of printed and copied pages produced.

Duncan Eaton, chief executive of the NHS PASA said: This contract shows again the benefits that can be achieved through cross government cooperation. The strategic deployment of networked multi-function products will deliver significant savings across the NHS.

Story by Andy Scott