iHELP Service (Pain Management) on Behalf of NHS West Lancashire CCG

NHS West Lancashire CCG has a population of 112,000 patients with 20 GP practices providing primary care and Southport and Ormskirk Hospital NHS Trust being the main provider of secondary health care.

The CCG's commissioning intentions include an aspiration to remodel chronic pain services to help contribute to the triple aim of improved population health, high quality holistic care for patients and reduced costs. Community Chronic Pain Service is to be known as iHELP which stands for integrated, holistic empowering learning programme. The CCG is committed to making a real difference to the way services are delivered and the quality of patient's individual experience of health care services in West Lancashire.

It is the intention that the West Lancashire iHELP service will be recognised as the highest quality service with the best outcomes at the lowest cost anywhere in the country. This is whilst also achieving significant benefits for patients as described in the service specification. In order to facilitate this the CCG are looking to work with the successful bidder to develop a risk/gain share model.

The iHELP service is required to be a single point of access for all chronic pain referrals to ensure that only appropriate referrals are forwarded to secondary care and the majority of patients are managed and cared for outside secondary care. The iHELP service should aim to offer an integrated model of service delivery and should utilise the skills of other external providers. The iHELP service will assess and manage patients within the service making use of local services such as those provided by the Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector (VCFS) and the local councils etc.

Approximately 2,200 patients have been prescribed Pregabalin (Lyrica) or strong Opioids for chronic pain and approximately 1,000 patients received pain management related procedures in secondary care in 2015/16. Also approximately 700 patients attended a Pain Management first outpatient appointment in secondary care with approximately 900 patients having one or more follow up appointments in 2015/16.

Current spend on chronic pain (recosted at 2017/18 tariff levels) is around £3.1 million, representing around £2 million of expenditure on Pregabalin (Lyrica), strong opioids and other analgesics prescribed in primary care and £1.1 million on secondary care (outpatient attendances, inpatient procedures, and day cases).

This contract will be an initial 3-year contract with the option to extend for a further 1 x 2-year period.

The procurement is being tendered pursuant to the light touch regime.

Any expressions of interest and responses will have to be submitted via our Bravo eTendering system at https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk