Hosting of Adult Critical Care Transfer Services (ACCTS) within the South East Regional Footprint

Concepts

• health services
• accts
• south east
• adult critical care transfer services
• host of this service
• substantive commissioned accts
• critical care transfer service
• nhs ambulance service trusts
• nhs improvement south east
• potential extension of the service hours

Location

Description

NHS England and NHS Improvement South East (The Commissioner) seeks initial Expressions of Interest (EOI) from providers who have the capability and capacity to host the ACCTS within the South East Region. The Commissioner aims to ensure the substantive commissioned ACCTS is in place during the 2022/23 financial year, which aligns with the current nationally produced service specification for ACCTS (a copy of which can be found at https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/adult-critical-care-transfer-services, along with toolkits). It is currently anticipated that the contract duration will be in the region of 3-5 years, although this is to be confirmed. The contract value for the new contract is to be finalised and is dependent on a number of factors, including a potential extension of the service hours. The ACCTS will be a regionally based critical care transfer service/s providing consultant led coordination, decision-support and transfer of critically ill patients between hospitals for time critical and non-time critical escalation to specialist care, retrieval, repatriation, and non-clinical transfers for capacity during periods of surge. It is primarily focussed on intra region transfers but must be capable of delivering inter regional transfers and repatriations along patient tertiary referral pathways and during periods of surge capacity when the Adult Critical Care (ACC) service is under pressure. The commissioning of the ACCTS will provide a minimum standard of care and equitable access for all adult patients during transfers. The host of this service is responsible for the ACCTS and facilitating running the service, but decisions will be made through the partnership board (see below). These services are currently commissioned in an interim arrangement directly with the two NHS Ambulance Service Trusts in the South East. As is described in the National toolkits, it is anticipated that the substantive service will be hosted by an Acute Trust or an Acute Trust in partnership with a Non-Acute Trust, with experience of delivering adult critical care services. This Trust, or Trust partnership, would work collaboratively within a governance framework of an ACCTS Partnership Board to set up and host the ACCT Service, as described in the national toolkits. The ACCT Service will operate as a standalone service, which means that whilst the host will hold the substantive or honorary contracts for clinical staff, they must not function as part of a Critical Care Unit in terms of staffing, day-to-day function or interdependence. Staff must be independent and not have other clinical responsibilities whilst carrying out transfer shifts.

CPV Codes

• 85100000 - Health services

Indicators

• Contract is suitable for SMEs.
• Contract is suitable for VCOs.

Other Information

The host will retain contractual and clinical responsibility for the delivery of the ACCTS. The operational and management activity of the ACCT Service will be overseen by the ACCT Service Partnership Board, with representation from the host and NHSEI (as a minimum) and where strategic collaborative decisions will be made about the set up and design of the service, as well as the long-term strategy and reporting. EOIs received will be used to help NHSE/I identify any potential providers interested in hosting the service and determine commissioning and contracting options for these services. As such, only organisations with appropriate capability and actual/potential capacity to host the ACCTS should respond to this notice. To register an Expression of Interest please access the In-Tend e-procurement portal and complete the short questionnaire requesting contact details etc. The deadline for EOIs is 12 noon on Tuesday 5th October 2021. Following receipt of EOIs, engagement will take place with potential provider hosts, and is likely to take the form of briefing events, workshops and/or meetings. Interested providers will be able to view the associated notice via the 'current tenders' list on the In-Tend e-procurement portal https://in-tendhost.co.uk/scwcsu/aspx/Home This exercise is being carried out by NHS South, Central & West Commissioning Support Unit on behalf of NHSE/I. The services are healthcare services falling within Schedule 3 to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 ("the Regulations") which are not subject to the full regime of the Regulations, but are instead governed by the "Light Touch Regime" contained within Chapter 3, Section 7 of the Regulations (Regulations 74 to 77). Publication of this notice does not commit NHS England to a future procurement. NHS England will not be liable for costs incurred by any interested party in participating in this exercise. This notice is an information gathering exercise rather than a call for competition in its own right, and therefore publication or response does not commit NHS England and NHS Improvement or respondents to a future procurement or to any award of contracts, nor provide any process exemptions or preferential treatment to any parties expressing an interest.