INSOURCING OF CLINICAL SUPPORT SERVICES (SBS10203)

Concepts

• health services
• hertfordshire
• nhs shared business services
• nhs shared business services limited
• nhs shared business services act
• clinical support services
• additional clinical capacity
• insourcing of clinical support services
• clinical
• insourcing

Location

Hertfordshire

Description

NHS Shared Business Services act in an Agency capacity for and on behalf of its customers (Approved Organisations) - existing and new. These comprise of NHS and Social Care organisations (whether acting individually, or on behalf of, or together as members of any consortia) along with any other public or private sector bodies which NHS SBS authorises to use the resulting Framework. NHS Shared Business Services Limited (NHS SBS) has put in place a Framework Agreement for the provision of Insourcing of Clinical Support Services and related Goods and Services for Healthcare to be used by NHS SBS Approved Organisations. This Framework Agreement was awarded under the Light Touch Regime ('LTR') and in accordance with regulations 74 to 77 of The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015) and relates to Schedule 3 of the PCR 2015 as a specific service. Pursuant to the published competition rules set out in the original tender, the Framework Agreement can be re-opened under the light touch regime at specific points during the term of the Framework Agreement. New suppliers will only be awarded contracts for the remaining term of the Framework Agreement.

Total Quantity or Scope

The framework provides a route to market for Approved Authorities to procure additional clinical capacity using a third-party provider. The Insourcing model can be used by NHS Trusts to aid in the reduction of patient waiting lists by utilising the Trusts sites during out-of-hours' time periods such as evenings and weekends.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 85100000 - Health services

Indicators

• Award on basis of price and quality.

Legal Justification

The award of the Framework Agreement was awarded under the Light Touch Regime ('LTR'). This was conducted in accordance with regulations 74 to 77 of The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015). Pursuant to the published competition rules set out in the original tender, the Framework Agreement can be re-opened under the light touch regime at specific points during the term of the Framework Agreement. New suppliers will only be awarded contracts for the remaining term of the Framework Agreement. NHS Shared Business Services intends to re-open competition in accordance with the Framework Agreement rules. Please note, the original Commercial Schedule requested bidders to submit example costs based on a given scenario to enable the pricing element of the tender to be evaluated. NHS SBS is proposing to amend the pricing element when reopening competition. The new pricing element of the tender will be based on bidders proposed discount off Healthcare Resource Groups (HRGs). The re-opened tender will therefore use HRG codes from '2022/23 National Tariff Payment System: Annex-A - National tariff workbook'. Within the National Health Service (NHS), a HRG is a grouping consisting of patient events that have been judged to consume a similar level of resource. For example, there are several different knee-related procedures that all require similar levels of resource; they may all be assigned to one HRG. HRGs acts as the 'currency' of Payment by Results (PbR) for admitted patient care, outpatient procedures and Accident and Emergency (A&E) attendances. In context of PbR, 'currency' refers to the units of healthcare for which a payment is made. HRGs can be derived for the following areas: Admitted Patient Care • Non-Admitted Consultations • Emergency Medicine • Adult Critical Care • Paediatric Critical Care • Neonatal Critical Care • Renal We believe this to be the most appropriate approach to commercial evaluations for this service and provides clear process for evaluation. NHS SBS also intends to clarify by updating the requirements of the Award Questionnaire, specifically the question relating to "Fighting Climate Change". This clarification will resolve misinterpretations and provide a clear explanation to ensure bidders' responses can be evaluated in line with the scoring methodology. In relation to bidder's adherence to the Vaccination as a Condition of Deployment within the Award Questionnaire, the original tender asked bidders to provide a written 500-word response to be evaluated in line with the published scoring methodology. NHS SBS have reviewed this approach and intend to apply a variation to the scoring methodology within the reopening of the tender based on a Yes or No response from bidders. Responses to this question will either score 100% of the weighted award criteria or score 0% of the weighted award criteria. The remainder of the Award Questionnaire remains unchanged.

Other Information

Framework agreement Start Date: 03/07/2023 Framework agreement End Date: 02/07/2027 Framework Agreement Term: 4 years Procurement: In accordance with the Light Touch Regime The Framework Agreement is for the provision of Insourcing of Clinical Services and related Goods and Services for Healthcare to be used by Approved Organisations. The Framework Agreement supports the use of insourcing support services across the NHS, enabling Trusts to secure extra clinical capacity and help meet increasing demand. This short to medium term solution allows Trusts to retain capacity planning in-house and ensures that patients can be seen within the Trust. Insourcing is defined as the employment of a third-party organisation to perform medical services/procedures on trust premises. It differs to locum and agency staffing supply with the full end to end service being provided, not just staff. The Supplier uses the NHS organisation's premises and equipment to deliver these services. Insourcing is largely focused on secondary care and the services are generally used out of hours when the premises/equipment is not being used by the NHS, thus making efficient use of the services. The Framework Agreement has been awarded under the Light Touch Regime ('LTR'). It has been conducted in accordance with regulations 74 to 77 of The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR 2015), and relates to the Health, social and related services which are listed in Schedule 3 of the PCR 2015 as a specific service. Pursuant to the published competition rules set out in the original tender, the Framework Agreement can be re-opened under the light touch regime at specific points during the term of the Framework Agreement. New suppliers will only be awarded contracts for the remaining term of the Framework Agreement. This VEAT Notice is related to contract award reference 2022/S000-020022