Adult Primary Care Continence

This contract has been awarded to Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust under Direct Award Process A of the Provider Selection Regime. The specialist urogynaecology physiotherapy service forms an integrated element of the wider Primary Care Continence Service delivered to the Cheshire West population and is clinically interdependent with the existing continence pathway operating across the West Cheshire Health Collaborative. The service requires direct integration with the established multidisciplinary continence team, shared clinical pathways, referral and triage arrangements, clinical governance processes and collaborative working arrangements that are already in place between the Provider and Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust.

The service is not a standalone physiotherapy service that can be separated from the wider continence pathway without creating fragmentation of care, duplication of processes and disruption to patient management. Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is the only provider currently embedded within, and able to deliver the specialist physiotherapy component as part of, the existing integrated continence model across the West Cheshire Health Collaborative. Continuation of the existing arrangement ensures safe and effective patient care, maintains pathway integration and avoids disruption to patients accessing specialist continence services.

The service relies upon established clinical relationships, referral pathways, governance arrangements and multidisciplinary working practices that have been developed as part of the West Cheshire Health Collaborative model and cannot reasonably be replicated by an alternative provider without fundamental redesign of the service pathway.