Expressions of Interest and Market Engagement for the future provision of a Paediatric Transfer and Advice Service across the East of England region (excluding Milton Keynes)

The commissioners would like the service to be based in the East of England region to ensure timely and equitable transfers for all children. Attached, for information, is the Service Specification.

It is intended in the first instance to commission a service with the scope referred to in the Service Scope section below [.During the life time of the contract the intention is to extend the service to;'

• Deliver safe and effective transfers for critically ill non-ventilated children
• Repatriate children when resources allow, to ensure care closer to home and efficient use of EoE Level 2 and 3 beds, and
• Transport 0-16 year olds from Level 1 district general paediatric beds to Level 2 HDU beds when resources are available.

This will be subject to the development of a robust business case underpinned by audit data and provided that funding is available.

Service Scope

Specifically, the new service will:

• Cover all units based in the East of England except Milton Keynes.
• Provide for paediatric patients from 0 up to the age of 16 years (inclusive). In a very small number of cases the service may be more appropriate to transfer patients outside of this age range.
• Be a 24/7 365 consultant led service
• Retrieve children from HDU units in the EoE and transport to the most clinically appropriate PICU, which may be outside of EoE, taking into consideration the families wishes
• Deliver safe and effective transfers for critically ill ventilated children
• In exceptional cases, be required to be part of any national surge and may be required to operate outside these above criteria
• Cover all transfers from hospital units to the most clinically appropriate Paediatric critical care unit are included in scope
• Have dedicated ambulance transport with appropriately trained driver and equipment
• Repatriate children when resources allow, to ensure care closer to home and efficient use of EoE Level 2 and 3 beds

Advice and call handling and transport

• Provide advice to units
• When the unit is considering a transfer from their HDU to any PICU
• In the management of children in their unit before transfer i.e. getting the ready for transfer
• When they are expecting to receive a child into their unit (repatriation)
• Ensure that there is a known number to access advice and transport that is available 24/7 365 days a year
• To provide an ambulance fully equipped that meets the needs of the transfer service

Quality Standards, Data and Audit

• Ensure a maximum of three hours from call to bedside in 95% of cases
• Ensure all data items are collected in line with national and regional commissioner requirements

Additional information: Market Engagement Event

There will also be an opportunity for organisations to attend a Market Engagement Event (via Microsoft Teams) with the Commissioners on Tuesday 19th January 2021 from 13:00 to 14:00.

Organisations wishing to express an interest and/or attend the Market Engagement Event (maximum of 3 people per organisation), need to register on the EU Supply Portal and complete a short questionnaire. The EU supply link is https://uk.eu-supply.com/login.asp?B=UK ref ID no. 42540

The closing date for registering an interest is 17:30 on Friday 15th January 2021.

If you would like to have a 1:1 session with the Commissioners (at a later date), please indicate this on the questionnaire.

Once registered please complete the short questionnaire which asks providers to give details about your organisation's name and, email address, contact name together with your views on the challenges of delivering such a service, risks and experience of delivering a similar service to the one summarised above.

The aim of this Prior Information Notice is to;

1. Allow full market visibility of the proposed opportunity;
2. To use provider expertise to inform NHS England's decision-making process for the future commissioning of transport services for children, young people, parents and carers.