Health services

Description

NHS Barnsley Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) (the ‘Authority’) intends to extend a contract without competition during the period 1 January 2021-30 September 2021 with a contract value of GBP 898 583 to the incumbent providers as detailed below: Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Gawber Road, Barnsley, S75 2EP. The current integrated diabetes service contract covers two elements of the diabetes services in Barnsley. These are: • the Community Diabetes Specialist Nursing service for adults aged 17+; • outpatient services at the hospital, for adults aged 17+ relating to their diabetes. The service aims to provide continuity of care for patients in a joined up health and care system. This is particularly important for people living with diabetes, who see a wide range of healthcare teams. The contract was awarded after an open and competitive procurement at the end of 2017. The service commenced on 1 April 2018 and has an annual contract value of GBP 1.0783m. Building on work that has already taken place in Barnsley to bring together multi-disciplinary community services with general practice into something called Neighbourhood Teams the commissioning ambition of the Clinical Commissioning Group is to align specialist community diabetes services to the Neighbourhood Team model. The model is based on healthcare providers working collaboratively as a single team, with a multidisciplinary approach, to integrate care and deliver a seamless service putting patients and their carers at the heart. Adding diabetes to the model will enhance the links between services. The neighbourhood model is also built on the concept of primary care at place. Clinicians describe this as a change from reactively providing appointments to proactively care for the people and communities they serve. Working within the model includes using risk stratification for case management and management of patients within the Neighbourhood Team delivery approach. The first elements of the Neighbourhood Team model went live on 1 April 2020 and is being rolled out on a phased basis. The rationale for the extension of the Barnsley Integrated Diabetes Service (BIDS) is: 1) The next phase of the development of the integrated diabetes model was to align the specialist service to the developing Neighbourhood Team model and structures. The mobilisation of the Neighbourhood Team model and the development of phase 2 of this approach, which included specialist services, which has been delayed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. For BIDS this extends to moving from working collaboratively with the neighbourhood nurses to making wider integration links with primary care or non-health elements of the Neighbourhood Team model such as social care or housing. As a result of social distancing there have also been limitations on home visits/access to premises and joint clinics all which now require different solutions to be worked up. An extension give the opportunity for the Neighbourhood Team model to lead this development with a specialist service slotting in at the appropriate point. It also gives opportunity to support partnership approach. Covid-19 impact has provided the CCG with a unique opportunity to innovatively change the service offer with the current provider through increased partnership working. 2) The development of a revised diabetes specification that aligns to the Neighbourhood Team model has been delayed as a result of the pause to the Neighbourhood Team workstream. During the contract extension we will working with the current service provider to inform the development of a revised service specification that will be advertised for tender. 3) A contract extension will also allow any procurement process to take place post-winter (i.e. we are not asking services to respond at the peak of winter/during additional waves of Covid-19) and take away resource from delivering patient care. 4) Finally it allows the mobilisation of any new service to go-live after the foundational elements of the Neighbourhood Teams model/mobilisation have taken place. It would be unreasonable to expect a provider to be able to deliver within a contingent model that had not yet been fully rolled. The Neighbourhood Team development is a linked dependency to ensure the specialist service aligns to the core service. This workstream recommenced in October 2020. As stated above during the contract extension we will be working with the current service provider to develop a revised service specification that will be advertised for tender.