Prior Information Notice concerning provision of Autism Assessment Services in North Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent

North Staffordshire Combined Healthcare NHS Trust (NSCHT) wish to understand the availability of capable providers with the capacity to fulfill a short-term contract for a children and young person's autism diagnostic assessment service. Potential providers are asked to express an interest in potentially bidding for this service.

This contract will be for the delivery of a high-quality, NICE complainant diagnostic assessment service in accordance with the service specification, to support reducing the waiting times for an assessment.

Scope: Due to the demand for the service increasing significantly over the last 12 months, there is a backlog of children and young people (CYP) aged between 0-17 years who require an Autism diagnostic assessment. NSCHT wish to increase capacity by outsourcing the majority of these patients to reduce the waiting times for an assessment.

The Provider will be required to deliver timely, high quality, NICE complainant Autism diagnostic assessments on a cohort of CYP that is provided to them by NSCHT. The Provider will be required to outline where and how the assessments will take place, whether these will these be face to face Autism diagnostic assessments or virtual. The face to face appointment shall be conducted within the geographic location of North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

The Provider will be an expert provider of NICE compliant Autism diagnostic assessments and in order to be comparable with the NSCHT service, is comprised of a multidisciplinary team that is familiar with use of standardised ASD assessment tools: ADI-R, 3Di or DISCO for taking the history and ADOS-2 or BOSA for observing the CYP.

NSCHT, along with North Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent CCG are looking to implement a new CYP Autism service and there may be the option to extend the contract period, subject to satisfactory performance and at the discretion of the NSCHT

Population covered The population to be covered should include CYP aged 0-17 years, registered with a North Staffordshire or Stoke-on-Trent GP practice.

Additional information: Interested providers are asked to register their interest in participating in any future procurement opportunity and provide a brief description of their experience is providing this service and their capacity and capability in servicing the population covered by North Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent CCG

Please send your interest and supporting information direct to Roman Klimczak and Denise Dyke. e-mails [email protected] and [email protected]

Closing date Friday 24th September 2021.

Should a procurement be undertaken, this will be done via the Midlands and Lancashire CSU e-procurement portal hosted by Bravo Solutions. 'Light Touch Regime' services: The future procurement will be for clinical services which are Light Touch Regime services for the purpose of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as specified in Schedule 3 of the Regulations('Regulations'). Accordingly, the contracting authorities are only bound by those parts of the Regulations detailed in Chapter 3 Particular Procurement Regimes Section 7. The contracting authorities are not voluntarily following any other part of the Regulations. The procedure which the contracting authorities are following is set out in the MOI. As the CCG is a relevant body for the purpose of the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No 2) Regulations 2013 these Regulations also apply to this procurement.