Provision of Multiple Sclerosis Management Service for Children

This exercise is to commission a service that is able to expertly manage the provision of the Multiple Sclerosis Management Service for Children, including patients with suspected Multiple Sclerosis (MS) or equally rare 'MS-like', recurrent acquired demyelinating syndromes (ADS) or who have had a first demyelination episode and have a high risk of relapse which would require a similar treatment approach, including: Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder (NMO, NMOSD) and other AQP4 antibody associated demyelination; Myelin Oligodendrocyte Glycoprotein (MOG) antibody associated relapsing demyelination and other forms of recurrent relapsing demyelination.

The MS Hub Lead Centres will be geographically spaced across the Regional areas of NHS England as follows:

• i)Lot 1 - North comprising the NHS England Regions: the North East and Yorkshire; the North West,
• ii)Lot 2 - the Midlands comprising the NHS England Regions: the Midlands; the East of England
• iii)Lot 3 - London and the South: comprising the South East; the South West; London

The Commissioner reserves the right to direct award where competition is absent.

This notice is to advise incumbent and prospective providers in the market of the commissioner's intention to commission this service and to provide an opportunity to engage with and participate in a market engagement questionnaire. The outcome of this market engagement will help inform commissioners of the current and future capacity and capability of the market and will be considered with other evidence to inform the commissioning approach,

Applications may be made jointly where partners can demonstrate appropriate expertise and meet the service criteria set out in the questionnaire and service specification: multiple-sclerosis-mgt-for-children-sept-2017.pdf (england.nhs.uk).