Virtual Ward GP Support Service

Concepts

• st leonards on sea
• general practitioner
• • support
• virtual ward
• virtual ward pathways
• virtual ward gp support service
• service meetings
• the virtual ward team• occasional
• the virtual ward team•
• the trust virtual ward

Location

St Leonards on Sea

Description

A seven day per week service supporting the Trust Virtual Ward consisting of:• Daily attendance and patient review at a VW virtual ‘board round’ to discuss patients – as appropriate• Medical decision making & prescribing as required for VW patients• Escalation to ESHT Consultants from relevant specialties to support the VW team• Medical advice – available during working hours – for the Virtual Ward team• Occasional home visiting (rarely required) if it is clearly beneficial and will • Support the Virtual Ward team in communication and working with carers and relatives• Support the Trust in the development of Virtual Ward pathways, VW awareness, and efficacy of access/referral/discharge processesThe GPs supporting the service are required to be able to offer face to face reviews occasionally and attend in person some development or service meetings, in a timely fashion and at short notiice – i.e. need to be working within East Sussex, able and willing to travel.The GPs also need to be experienced in general, skilled in supporting acute illness and in particular for patients with Frailty. The GP service must include GPs experienced in supporting virtual wards (to help with their own supervision and development).The GPs supporting also need to be familiar with local systems and processes (e.g. HSCC, JCR, UCR, PSL etc arrangements). GPs in the service need to be able to maintain good relations with ESHT Consultants (where relevant) and other primary care colleagues in East Sussex.

Award Detail

Award Criteria

CPV Codes

• 85121100 - General-practitioner services

Indicators

• Award on basis of price and quality.

Legal Justification

This is a Provider Selection Regime (PSR) award notice. The awarding of this contract is subject to the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. Decision makers: Simon Dowse – Director of Transformation, Strategy & Improvement. Abigail Turner – DDO, CHIC Division.The basic selection criteria and the key criteria were assessed by reflecting on the evidence provided by SDHC Ltd. SDHC Ltd have successfully delivered a pilot over 12 months, where the provider met all the specified criteria. The quality of the provision to date exceeds expectations and is critical to service quality overall. The service provider has directly supported innovation of the service, pathways, promotion or the service within ESHT and wider GP community. They are also working with us on innovating training for VW medical support.The VW service and GP service provider have a well embedded and positive working relationship. The arrangement offers an exemplar for integrated acute, community and primary care working and collaboration – to deliver a service that offers better outcomes for patients and use of health and care resourcesThe GP service continues to offer significant value vs recruiting our own GPs, using our own consultant resource or using ‘agency’.The service recruits manage and provides GPs through the Federation. Lessons and challenges from the ESHT approach to recruiting in-house GPs for our UTC model indicate that this approach, working with the Federation, is more sustainable, more resilient and more cost-effective. (We are exploring options to use this model for other services)The GP service provided is critical to delivery of the VW – which represents an increase in patient choice.

Other Information

Contract Start Date 01/10/2024Contract End Date 30/09/2027