Provision of Autism Assessment Services in North Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent

North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust (NSCHT) are looking for a service provider with capacity to undertake Autism diagnostic Assessment for a group of Patients on a waiting list.

This contract will be for the delivery of a high-quality, NICE complainant diagnostic assessment service in accordance with the service specification, to support reducing the waiting times for an assessment.

This Contract is initially for 3 months commencing 2nd of January 2022 to 31st March 2022. There is a possible 1-year extension subject to funding availability.

Scope:

Due to the demand for the service increasing significantly over the last 12 months, there is a backlog of children and young people (CYP) aged between 0-17 years who require an Autism diagnostic assessment. NSCHT wish to increase capacity by outsourcing the majority of these patients to reduce the waiting times for an assessment.

The Provider will be required to deliver timely, high quality, NICE complainant Autism diagnostic assessments on a cohort of CYP that is provided to them by NSCHT.

The Provider will be required to outline where and how the assessments will take place, whether these will these be face to face Autism diagnostic assessments or virtual. The face-to-face appointment shall be conducted within the geographic location of North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

The Provider will be an expert provider of NICE compliant Autism diagnostic assessments and in order to be comparable with the NSCHT service, is comprised of a multidisciplinary team that is familiar with use of standardised ASD assessment tools: ADI-R, 3Di or DISCO for taking the history and ADOS-2 or BOSA for observing the CYP.

NSCHT, along with North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent CCG are looking to implement a new CYP Autism service and there may be the option to extend the contract period, subject to satisfactory performance and at the discretion of the NSCHT

Population covered

The population to be covered should include CYP aged 0-17 years, registered with a North Staffordshire or Stoke-on-Trent GP practice.

Finance

The values stated within this notice are estimated and may be subject to change.

Additional information: 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 Annex 1. 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. This tender will be operated via electronic means using the internet. Midlands and Lancashire CSU is conducting this procurement exercise as a central purchasing body for another NHS body with whom the successful bidder(s) will enter into contracts for the supply of the services.

Any other public-sector body detailed within this notice, wishing to access the contract may do so only with permission from the contracting NHS body.

Details will be made available via documentation and information released during the tender process.

This exercise will be conducted on the Midlands and Lancashire CSU portal at https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk

Bidders should register on the portal at https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk(registration and use of the website is free of charge). If your organisation has registered previously, you do not need to re-register.

For technical support in submitting your expression of interest contact the Bravo Solution Help-desk on +448003684850 or E-mail: help@bravosolution

There is one ITT relevant to this procurement, namely ITT858. Bidders Should ensure that they are able to access this project.