Prior Information Notice (PIN) and Market Engagement Session for the Core Surgical Anatomy Programme and General Surgical Skills Programmes - Health Education England (HEE) - NHS/SoEPS/16.300

NHS South of England Procurement Services, acting on behalf of Health Education England (the Commissioner) will be commencing a tender for the delivery of two surgical programmes - Core Surgical Anatomy programme that forms part of the London Core Surgical Training programme and the General Surgical Skills programme that forms part of the London General Surgery Higher Training Programme for London. This Prior Information Notice (PIN) is to advise prospective providers of the Commissioners intention.

Programme 1: The Core Surgical Anatomy Programme consists of a minimum of 162 hours of teaching and demonstrations on human anatomy of the whole body using cadaveric prosection and radiological anatomy, e.g. MRI, delivered over a minimum of 18 sessions from October to June.

Each doctor in the first year of their core training programme must attend a minimum of one of three triplicated 3-hour sessions offered each week for 18 weeks. Sessions are triplicated each week to maximise attendance. The sessions must be aligned to the MRCS curriculum and go beyond this to facilitate an understanding of surgical anatomy and clinically relevant physiology and pathology.

Programme 2: The General Surgical Skills Programme provides systematic, structured hands-on experience in a number of index procedures for General Surgery specialist registrars. The skills laboratory environment complements on-the-job training, as it allows experienced consultants the time to detail the intricacies of the various procedures with the trainee doctor, as well as allowing them the opportunity to question the consultants. This is therefore achieved without any risk to patient safety, which could otherwise be compromised during clinical practice.

The training must be consultant-led, and involve hands-on experience with synthetic and non-live animal models on the bench and laparoscopic box-trainers. The structure of the teaching sessions must involve a brief presentation and discussion from the consultant trainer, followed by practical exercises on procedure-specific simulators. Emphasis is heavily placed on the practical side of skills training.

The Programme aims to teach the widest possible range of gold-standard general surgical procedures suitable for specialist registrars in year 3 to year 6.

We also plan to hold a Market Engagement session in London at: Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London, W1G 7LP on 31 January 2017 from 2pm - 5pm. This will provide an opportunity for potential providers to find out more about the aims of the tender and contracts, the process involved as well as network with others. HEE will use the opportunity to gather intelligence from providers which may influence the final tender.

Please RSVP by 12 noon on 20 January 2017 with the name, title and contact details for attendees (a maximum of two attendees per organisation) to:

Teresa Collins

Quality and Performance Manager, Teresa.Collins@southlondon.hee.nhs.uk

Additional information: The commissioner reserves the right not to proceed with the Procurement, or any part thereof, or change the requirements as necessary at any time.

It is the intention of the commissioner that the procurement will be conducted as on OJEU Service Contract using an Open Procedure under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The ITT is expected to be published in March 2017. A separate advert will be released advising of this.