Tele-dermatology and One-stop Advice Treatment Service (OATS)

NHS Tower Hamlets CCG is keen to test the potential provider market for Tele-dermatology and One-stop Advice Treatment Service (OATS).

Service Description The core aim of the Teledermatology and One Stop Assessment and Treatment Service (OATS) is to improve the quality of healthcare services and clinical outcomes for patients with Dermatological conditions, reduce waiting times for access to assessment and treatment, facilitate patients being seen by the right provider at the initial point of contact, increase access for patients with Dermatological conditions as an alternative to secondary care assessment and provide value for money through increasing efficiency.

The key benefits of the proposed service will be to provide: • equality of access to patients • treatment and care close to home as quickly as possible in accessible locations • reduced unnecessary utilisation of secondary and tertiary resources • reduced variability in the quality of service delivery, including transport issues, waiting times, and availability of follow up appointments. • continuity of care and avoidance of multiple referrals or repeated investigations.

Lead Provider Model In this model, Tower Hamlets CCG will commission the Teledermatology and One Stop Assessment and Treatment Services (OATS) to a single provider that will then both provide care and integrate existing and other providers into a programme of care for the Tower Hamlets Dermatology patient population. It is the prime contractor’s task to ensure that every part of the overall Dermatology programme is delivered in a way that joins up with the other parts of the pathway. This provides the prime contractor/lead provider (with its subcontractors) the ability to construct an overall pathway of care and incentives that provide Tower Hamlets CCG, as the commissioner, with the outcomes that they want whilst remaining within the available budget.

Commissioning for outcomes and quality not activity based The commissioners, NHS Tower Hamlets CCG, plan to a whole systems approach moving beyond productive/technical efficiency (i.e. maximising the efficiency of any one institution) towards allocative efficiency (i.e. maximising the efficiency of a pathway served by more than one provider). To incentivise this collaboration and consideration of allocative efficiency, the commissioners will align financial incentives for the lead provider into delivery of a single set of outcome measures, shared by all providers within the system of care. Therefore, the commissioner, NHS Tower Hamlets CCG will commission a service that is supported by a block outcomes based contract. This means that the successful bidder will be awarded 70% payment upon award of the contract, with the remainder 30% value upon successful evidence of the expected outcomes measured by the KPI’s defined within the contract. The total value of the contract over 5 years is £1,209,574.

Additional information: NHS Tower Hamlets CCG is keen to test the potential provider market for Tele-dermatology and One-stop Advice Treatment Service (OATS).

Potential providers with relevant technical capability and experience to deliver this service are required to express an interest if they are interested in bidding for this service should the CCG decide to carry out a competitive tender exercise and publishes a Contract Notice for this requirement.

You can express an interest in this market testing exercise by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. The deadline for submitting a response for this market testing exercise is at 8th July 2015 at 17:00. Your e-mail must include details about your organisation’s technical capability and previous experience of delivering Tele-dermatology and One-stop Assessment and Treatment Service (OATS) or similar services.

Please note that this is a market testing exercise to inform the CCGs’ decision making process. This does not commit the CCG to a carry out a procurement process.

Bidders who have expressed an interest in this market testing exercise will have to submit a separate response to the Contract Notice should the CCG decide to procure this service and publish a Contract Notice (advert) for this requirement.

In the instance the CCG decides to procure this service an open procurement process will be undertaken in which all potential providers are able to submit a bid to tender. The Invitation To Tender (ITT) documentation will be issued, leading to evaluation of bids, interview and contract award. It is anticipated that the entire process will take between 6 and 9 months. The new service provision commencing April 1st 2016.