LSC ICB Non Emergency Patient Transport Service

Midlands and Lancashire CSU is working with NHS Lancashire & South Cumbria Integrated Care Board (ICB); NHS Greater Manchester ICB; NHS Cheshire and Merseyside ICB; and NHS North East and North Cumbria ICB who are looking to undertake a future procurement for the provision of Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services (NEPTS) to cover Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside and Cumbria.

Additional information: The ICBs are looking to undertake a future procurement for the provision of Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services (NEPTS) to cover Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Merseyside and Cumbria delivering:

• Planned Patient Transport - for routine outpatient appointments
• Unplanned Patient Transport - for discharges / short notice bookings
• Enhanced Priority Service Transport - for time critical transport for patients attending for haemodialysis or oncology treatments

The ICBs plan to divide the geographical footprint into LOTs based on either existing County or ICB areas. When the Invitation to Tender is published, bidders will be invited to bid for one, more or all of the LOTs available.

The ICBs are inviting any organisation who would wish to bid for the service to a virtual bidder engagement meeting to discuss the requirements of the service and answer any questions that any potential bidder may have. The engagement meeting is scheduled to take place on Tuesday 25th April 2023.

The draft specification will be made available to participants in the engagement meetings. All questions and answers will be recorded and share with any participating organisation.

If you wish to participate in the engagement meetings, please e-mail mlcsu.tendersnorth@nhs.net to arrange attendance and receive further details. The deadline for requesting attendance is 12pm on Friday 21st April 2023.

The potential contract will be valued at approximately £59 million per year across all the ICB areas; and the contract duration will be for 5 years with the potential to extend for a further period of 2 or 3 years (to be confirmed).

This procurement is for Social and other specific services which are Light Touch Regime services for the purpose of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as specified in Schedule 3 of the Regulations ('Regulations') http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/schedule/3/made

Accordingly, the Contracting Authority is only bound by those parts of the Regulations detailed in Chapter 3 Particular Procurement Regime Section 7 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/part/2/chapter/3/made

The Contracting Authority is not voluntarily following any other part of the Regulations.

As the ICB is a relevant body for the purpose of the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No 2) Regulations 2013 these Regulations also apply to this procurement.

Right to Cancel: The Contracting Authority reserves the right to discontinue the procurement process at any time, which shall include the right not to award a contract or contracts, and does not bind itself to accept the lowest tender, or any tender received, and reserves the right to award a contract in part, or to call for new tenders should it consider this necessary.