Tender for the Provision of the Buckinghamshire Out of Hours Primary Medical Care Service and Urgent Care Centre

Aylesbury Vale CCG and Chiltern CCG are procuring a county wide Primary Medical Care Service which will include an Out of Hours (OOH) service and an Urgent Care Centre (UCC) in High Wycombe. These will commence on 1st April 2017 and will follow on from existing services. This service will be a functionally integrated part of the new Thames Valley NHS 111 Integrated Urgent Care Service, which is also being procured currently (under a separate process). The winning bidder for the Buckinghamshire OOH and UCC contract will be expected to have an excellent working relationship with the winner of the Thames Valley wide service. As an important step towards integration, Buckinghamshire is moving the payment for all telephone consultations into the new Thames Valley 111 Integrated Urgent Care Service. As a result the out of hours component of this OOH & UCC procurement will not include payment for telephone consultations, but only include face to face consultations at Primary Care Centre bases and home visits.

Bidders must be able to demonstrate considerable expertise and experience in delivering OOH and UCC services which are integrated with local primary, community and secondary care as well as social care services. This will improve the quality of services through a reduction in the duplication for patients as well as achieving improved efficiency and value for public funds. Bids are welcomed from individual organisations, consortiums or “lead providers” working with sub-contractors but all must be in a position to sign one single contract.

The service will be staffed by GPs and other suitable clinicians who are able to reduce the number of subsequent contacts patients have with the NHS because they meet patients’ needs on their first point of contact with the OOH or UCC service . To achieve this staff will have an excellent and detailed understanding of other local NHS and social care services. The successful provider will also be able to attract sufficient high quality staff to fill rotas and so ensure sufficient capacity to meet demand. As a result the winning bidder will deliver robust out of hospital services which meet patients’ needs in the community and so reduce demand for emergency department attendances and hospital admissions.

Please refer to attached document for full text.

Additional information: Please note that this service is a healthcare service within the meaning and scope of the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No.2) Regulations 2013 and are therefore not governed by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The tendering process will therefore be conducted in accordance with the current legislation that applies to the tendering of healthcare services within the meaning and scope of the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No.2) Regulations 2013. The Commissioners will run a fair and transparent tender process, treating all bidders equally. For the avoidance of doubt, the Commissioner will not be bound by the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. In addition, the Commissioner will not be bound by the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or any other regulations or legislation except for the specific parts or circumstances that apply to the procurement of these services.