Health services

Description

Provision of a new urgent treatment centre (UTC) service to be co-located with the Emergency Department of the Watford General Hospital. The service is to be delivered through a sub-contracted partner to the Trust, to bring primary care clinical capacity with a specialist focus on streaming and managing patients with minor illness or injuries normally presenting at the emergency department, as well as referrals from 111. The contract has potential to expand in scope to include: early winter provision to support ED in winter 2019/20; Paediatric streaming and initial assessment; activity growth exceeding the base case assumptions, including both annual growth and percentage of total activity treated within the UTC; employment of some or all staff currently provided by the Trust; and sub-contracting the delivery of other centres, specifically Hemel Urgent Treatment Centre and St Albans minor injuries unit/urgent treatment centre. Recognising that the services being procured fall within scope of Schedule 3 of the EU procurement directives, this procurement is being run as a bespoke competitive procurement involving a number of steps fully described within the procurement documents. Early submission of the qualification questionnaires and supporting financial assessment templates are required, prior to submission of all other bid response documents. Full details provided within the procurement documents. The successfully appointed provider is to be clinically responsible for the service, including having responsibility for registration with the regulator, the care quality commission (CQC) and also for clinical governance. For this reason very specific qualifying criteria apply to bidders, ensuring specific capable experience in the provision of integrated urgent treatment centre services and experience and capability in successfully recruiting and retaining a GP workforce. Bidders will need to demonstrate achievement of sufficient CQC ratings and achievement of minimum performance against national A&E 4-hour standard in the delivery of UTC services. Full details described within the qualification questionnaire. The initial contract term is for 4 years and 3 months, from April 2020 until June 2024, but having rights reserved to terminate a year earlier. The contract may be extended for up to a total of 8 years and 3 months until June 2028.