Regional Home Oxygen Assessment and Referral Service

North of England Commissioning Support (NECS) on behalf of several Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) across the North East and Cumbria are inviting bids from potential provider organisations in respect of a Regional Home Oxygen – Assessment and Review Service.

The aim of the service is to offer the provision of a high quality evidence based assessment, management, education and support service for adult patients who require long term oxygen therapy within a community setting, implementing appropriate systems to avoid unnecessary expenditure and hospital admission in accordance with the following objectives which will support the CCG’s strategic plans:

• To improve the quality of life for people requiring oxygen therapy; • To educate patients and their carers on the effective use and management of oxygen therapy; • To ensure all patients with oxygen saturation (SaO2) of 92% or less receive a formal assessment for Long-Term Oxygen Therapy; • To ensure all assessments and reviews are undertaken in accordance with the British Thoracic Society (BTS) Guidelines; • Build effective working relations with the oxygen supply company; • To work collaboratively with primary care, community and secondary care respiratory services; • To carry out ambulatory oxygen assessments and the prescribing of oxygen; • To reduce the number of inappropriate oxygen prescriptions; • To improve service consistency, delivery and access for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in a cost effective manner; • To avoid unnecessary hospital admissions through the provision of a Home Oxygen Assessment and Review Service in a timely manner; and • To demonstrate some initial savings through identification of inappropriate use oxygen use.

North of England Commissioning Support Service (NECS) is a commissioning support service hosted by NHS England and will manage the procurement for an on behalf of the CCGs (the contracting authorities).

It has been determined that the procurement exercise will be divided into two separate Lots to satisfy the service needs, as detailed below:

o Lot 1 – North East (NHS Darlington CCG, NHS North Durham CCG, NHS DDES CCG, NHS Newcastle Gateshead CCG, NHS South Tees CCG, NHS South Tyneside CCG, NHS Sunderland CCG o Lot 2 – Cumbria (Allerdale, Carlisle, Copeland and Eden Localities on behalf of NHS Cumbria CCG) o Lot 3 - Cumbria (Furness and South Lakes Localities on behalf of NHS Cumbria CCG)

If your organisation would like to register an interest please go to: https://in-Tendhost.co.uk/necs and navigate to NECS101 – Regional Home Oxygen Assessment and Review Service. Please note that all communications will be conducted via the In-Tend portal.

It is free to register on the portal, which can be accessed at any time of day. A dedicated helpdesk is available should potential providers have any queries and can be contacted on 0844 2728810 (Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm) / [email protected].