Strategic alliance to reduce the use of agency staff

East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust (the 'Trust'), is seeking to establish a strategic alliance with an experienced provider to work in unison with the Trust toward developing, and delivering, a common strategy to reduce the Trust's reliance on the use of clinical and non-clinical agency supplied staff.

The Trust operates across three main acute sites:

• Kent and Canterbury Hospital in Canterbury, Kent;
• Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent; and
• William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent.

In addition local services, including outpatients and diagnostics, are provided from Buckland Hospital in Dover, Kent and The Royal Victoria Hospital in Folkestone, Kent.

The Trust would like to hear from experienced providers willing to share information about their approach to reduce the Trust's reliance on the use of agency staff to:

• gauge the likely level of interest from the market
• better understand what solutions and services are available from the market
• explore how the options could be delivered
• consider the likely costs
• determine the most effective way of scoping the Trust's requirements for any future procurement opportunity

This PIN is being published as a means of pre-warning the market of the Trust's intentions to undertake a procurement exercise and seek expressions of interest from experienced providers that wish to take part in the pre-market engagement exercise and to present to the Trust's project team to help us understand the market place in more detail. It is NOT a call for competition instead of an OJEU contract notice.

Experienced providers wishing to express an interest in this pre-market engagement exercise are encouraged to register their interest via Trust's eTendering system, Bravo Solution, website address https://commercialsolutions.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.shtml

Instructions for registering an interest are as follows:

• a)click 'View current opportunities and notices'

• b)express an interest in the project pqq_980 - Strategic alliance to reduce the use of agency staff. It should be noted that this is NOT the actual Selection Questionnaire stage of any potential procurement exercise. System limitations mean that the label states 'PQQ' but the procurement opportunity is NOT yet live. You will be informed if, and when, the procurement goes live.

• c)accurately complete and fully submit your answers to the questionnaire.

Please note that:

• experienced providers who do not wish to participate in this pre-market engagement exercise will be able to express their interest in participating if, and when, the procurement opportunity goes live and the contract notice calling for competition is published
• the date of contract notice publication is estimated and may be subject to change.

The Trust anticipates that the Competitive Dialogue procedure shall be used following the publication of this PIN.