Healthcare Hubs (extended primary care access) in Leicester City

NHS Leicester City Clinical Commissioning Group (LC CCG) is inviting suitably qualified and experienced providers to deliver the provision of Healthcare Hubs in Leicester City to provide primary care appointments in hours and out of hours.

The General Practice Forward View sets out a requirement for primary care services to be accessible 7 days a week. There is a national need to adopt an intelligent approach to introducing extended access through flexibilities in delivery of the Government's access commitment, enabling integration with out of hours provision, and ensuring there is the ability for extended access to boost overall capacity and reduce demand in normal working hours, both in primary care and as part of a wider system approach.

LC CCG is a transformation site for primary care extended access, and seen to be at the forefront of delivering excellent access to primary care services for patients registered with GP practices in the city. Since October 2015 the hubs have provided over 1500 additional GP and nurse appointments each week during evenings, weekends and Bank Holidays to Leicester City registered patients via the GP Access Fund framework (previously Prime Minister's challenge fund).

LC CCG is committed to commissioning services which form part of a Leicester Leicestershire & Rutland (LLR) - wide integrated, coherent and intelligent urgent care system, with patients supported to access the right service via enhanced clinical navigation. Community urgent care services will be available 24/7, 7 days a week with reduced duplication and improved information sharing and signposting between providers. Achieving this vision depends upon collaboration between providers, with a joint clinical governance framework supporting front line staff.

This will be contracted for a period of 3 years with the potential to extend for up to a further 2 years. Estimated value for this is circa £1.6m per annum.

The service will be commissioned via an open procurement process advertised to all providers which is proportionate to the value and complexity of the service and contract. The ITT will be live on the 23rd October 2017 on M&L CSU Bravo portal (see below) and it will have a deadline for submissions of 12:00 (midday) on the 20th October 2017.

Clarifications may be asked during the procurement process up to a week before the ITT deadline, i.e. the deadline for submitting clarification questions on the tender is 17:00 10 October 2017.

Interested providers are guided to the MLCSU eProcurement portal Bravo at https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk to register their interest and gain access to this procurement's documents and more specific information. Please see next page for instructions on how to register on the portal.

Additional information:

NOTES

"Light Touch Regime" services

This procurement is for clinical 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"). Accordingly, the contracting authorities are only bound by those parts of the Regulations detailed in Chapter 3 Particular Procurement Regimes Section 7. The contracting authorities are not voluntarily following any other part of the Regulations.

The procedure which the contracting authorities are following is set out in the MOI and ITT. As the CCG 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. The contracting authority shall not be liable for any costs or expenses incurred by any candidate or tenderer in connection with the completion and return of the information requested in this Contract Notice, or in the completion or submission of any tender, irrespective of the outcome of the competition or if the competition is cancelled or postponed. All dates, time periods and values specified in this notice are provisional and the contracting authority reserves the right to change these.

Transparency

The contracting authority is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) and may be required to disclose information received in the course of this procurement under FOIA or the EIR. In addition, and in accordance with the UK Government's policies on transparency, the contracting authority intends to publish procurement documentation and the text of any resulting contractual arrangements, subject to possible redactions at the discretion of the contracting authority. Any redactions, whether in relation to information requests under FOIA, the EIR or policies on transparency will be in accordance with those grounds prescribed under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004. Further information on transparency can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/procurement-and-contracting-transparency-requirements-guidance