Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2019-03-13
Buyer: Tower Hamlets GP Care Group CiC
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 85000000
Estimated value: 300000 GBP

Technical requirements: Surgical aftercare is a community service which wound care for mobile patients (children and adults), following a surgical procedure. The service provides:
This includes responsibility for organising the appropriate supply and access to all relevant dressings and appliances. This includes more specialist dressings, if required. The majority of dressings will be accessed via central dressing supplies, but specialist dressings will have to be prescribed.
The service is provided within each GP Practice within Tower Hamlets, ensuring local, accessible and integrated services for patients.
The provider will: provide a wound care service for post-surgical patients, within the patients’ GP practice. The indicative activity figure is 9019 episodes of surgical aftercare per annum.
The surgical aftercare service is for the removal of sutures and general wound care following a hospital procedure where:
— the operation was performed as a consequence of a referral to or on-going care by hospital services,
— it is either inconvenient for or undesirable for the patient to attend at hospital. This would include follow-up of patients from A&E or the Walk In Centre.
The provider will have responsibility for organising the appropriate supply and access to all relevant dressings and appliances (including more specialist dressing if required). The provider must ensure they purchase clinically appropriate supplies, in line with locally agreed formulary and guidance, and ensure effective procedures to manage the risks of handling medicines, dressing and appliances.
Our proposal is to directly award this contract without a call for competition, to the Tower Hamlets GP Care Group, a GP federation whose members comprise all 37 GP practices in Tower Hamlets, under the provisions of the NHS Regulations 2013 and its focus on integration, avoidance of cost duplication and serving the needs of patients.
The Tower Hamlets GP Care Group will hold the contract on behalf of Tower Hamlets practices, ensuring back-office functions of the service can be managed centrally, offering a more cost effective model.
— the service is provided at practice level, in order to ensure ease of access and integration with other general practice services. It is expected that the requirement to provide access across a range of days and times at each practice within Tower Hamlets would make it extremely difficult to meet for an external provider,
— the service reports high patient satisfaction, and patients value the ability to access surgical aftercare services within their own GP practice,
— the service needs to integrate seamlessly with general practice services, and immediate access to GPs can be provided for advice in the event of complications, wound infections, or where a wound does not heal,
— wound care only represents one aspect of a patient’s post-operative care. Patients will need to attend their GP for follow-up, and this should be provided in a seamless and integrated fashion. The service offers a holistic, person-centred approach to all aspects of a patient’s care following their discharge from hospital, and offered in a single attendance where possible,
— this will also enable a broader population health approach to the management of patients under the enhanced service and support a more collaborative approach to the delivery of care, enabling practices to share workforce during a period where all practices are experiencing significant recruitment challenges.


Winner: Tower Hamlets GP Care Group CiC
Award value: 300000