Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2020-08-06
Buyer: Public Health England
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 72000000
Estimated value: 692434 GBP

Technical requirements: Υπηρεσίες τεχνολογίας των πληροφοριών: παροχή συμβουλών, ανάπτυξη λογισμικού, Διαδίκτυο και υποστήριξη
Public Health England (PHE) is planning to award CGI a renewal contract for the Healthcare Acquired Infection Data Capture System (HCAI DCS). CGI will provide application support, service management and development and maintenance of the HCAI System for a period of 3 years.
The requirement covers the support and maintenance of the HCAI DCS system and CGI have been providing uninterrupted application support and maintenance services for the HCAI DCS system since 2015. HCAI DCS captures data from private and NHS health providers on positive cases of HCAI. PHE are currently seeing coinfection of HCAI patients with COVID-19 and anticipate increases in the traditional HCAI pathogens following the COVID-19 response. The HCAI DCS is key to tracking and providing additional epidemiological information on these infections. National statistics on key HCAI are generated from the data the HCAI DCS collects and these statistics are used by NHSE to generate and monitor performance indicators for NHS trusts.
Delivering the change requests requires detailed understanding of the complex IT architecture, as one small change in one component could have significant impact on other parts of the system. As a result, the chosen supplier must have vast experience and knowledge of the HCAI DCS System to maintain a stable and safe environment. There is a high probability that there will be a need to make changes to the system in the near-term, either in how data is automatically processed or in data structure, to further support the COVID-19 incident, and these changes will need to be delivered quickly. Changing the supplier of system support and development would put delivery of timely changes at risk as a detailed knowledge transfer process would need to be undertaken before changes could be made. This would also put undue pressure on the PHE team that manage the system on a daily basis as they would be required to be involved in both the knowledge transfer and in closely overseeing the change request process, putting Covid-19 response and business as usual activities at risk.
PHE believe the direct award without publishing prior notification falls under Reg. 72.1.(b) of PCR Stating that “for additional works, services or supplies by the original contractor that have become necessary and were not included in the initial procurement, where a change of contractor—
(i) cannot be made for economic or technical reasons such as requirements of interchangeability or interoperability with existing equipment, services or installations procured under the initial procurement.
PHE believes moving ahead with a like-for-like replacement of the current system at this time due to various technical reasons and because of the late stage in the product lifecycle of the application, supporting the use of Reg 72 on both economic and technical grounds. PHE want to avoid potentially significant and duplicate costs implications, outlined under Reg 72, by having a clear forward strategy regarding the HCAI DCS System. This is yet to be determined and is likely to take at least 12 months for the pre-discovery work alone to be carried out. There are also human resource and capacity constraints within the business and ICT due to Covid-19 which would cause significant inconvenience, in compliance of Reg 72.
Similarly, the proposed 3-year contract extension takes in account the business disruption of Covid-19, which drives the timeline to implement a new cost-effective IT system, using the GDS Playbook methodology. Therefore, Reg 72 applies as it would be significantly inconvenient to PHE as the Authority to proceed with a shorter contract duration and re-procurement exercise under the current circumstances.


Winner: CGI IT UK LIMITED
Award value: 692434