End of Life Care at St Clare Hospice - Direct Award

This is a Contract Award Notice which follows the publication of a Voluntary Ex-Ante Notice published in Find a Tender (reference 2021/S 000-005241) to provide notice of the Contracting Authority's intention to award a short-term contract to its incumbent provider, St Clare Hospice, to deliver end of life care services.

St Clare Hospice provides palliative care to patients with life limiting diseases, when their disease is not responsive to curative treatment and the patient has a limited life expectancy. The service delivered by St Clare Hospice includes providing relief from pain and other distressing symptoms, integrating psychological and spiritual aspects of patient care, provides bereavement counselling if required and works in partnership with the health and care system to deliver a joined up and holistic service for our patient population.

West Essex CCG have been on a journey to establish an Integrated Care Partnership (ICP) across West Essex working with its incumbent providers. This work includes the development of the Out of Hospital Model, to which end of life services are a part of. This means that the continuation of services to be delivered by St Clare Hospice directly relates to the CCGs plans to deliver its ICP. Procurement of the services at this time would likely disrupt the progression of implementation of the Out of Hospital Model.

Furthermore, the hospice market within the West Essex geography is limited and therefore it is concluded that a procurement process would not be successful due to an absence of competition.

The new contract period is 1st April 2021 - 31st March 2022 and will include the option to extend for a further 12 months (to 31st March 2023).

The contractual value included within this Notice is reflective of the potential 2-year contract. The value of the initial 1-year contract is c. £2m