Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2020-06-09
Buyer: West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 85100000: Health services
Estimated value: 32000000 GBP

Technical requirements: This is a Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice and is intended to provide notice of the contracting authority's intention to award a contract for Community Services to its incumbent provider.
West Essex CCG has an ambitious strategy to integrate the delivery of health and care for the population of West Essex. The end goal is a truly integrated accountable care organisation. The West Essex system has been on a journey of integration with its incumbent providers for a number of years to develop integrated solutions for delivery of services across a number of different pathways.
The incumbent provider for community services in West Essex is Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT). EPUT are also a key partner within the one health and care partnership (the West Essex Integrated Care Partnership). As a key partner the CCG has been working with EPUT to redesign services which deliver integration with both the local acute and primary care providers. The current Community Services contract will end on 31 March 2021.
The new contract being proposed (covered by this VEAT Notice) will be for 1 year with the option to extend for a further year (1 April 2021 — 31 March 2022, with the option to extend from 1 April 2022 — 31 March 2023). The contract being negotiated with EPUT for this period will be split into 4 quadrants. These are:
This additional time will allow the CCG to continue the transformational work with its incumbent providers, which aims to provide increased high quality and joined up services to the patients of West Essex, without risking destabilisation of the transformational projects currently in place which enable successful delivery of this long term strategy. There is also a need to maintain a level of consistent service provision as the NHS enters recovery phase post Covid-19.
It might be that during the life of this contract, the CCG may decide to reduce the scope of services through removal of one, or a number of, the quadrants as the transformational plans progress. The value stated within this VEAT Notice is a maximum value for the full scope of services and will reduce accordingly should the overall scope reduce.
West Essex CCG has been working with its system partners for a number of years to develop an ambitious strategy to deliver truly integrated health services to its patient population.
This development has reached a crucial point with a number of key transformational programmes being both in development, and in place at the moment which are being tested and evaluated.
To procure the service at this point will likely destabilise the excellent progress that has been made and will delay implementation of the integrated care programme. This delay will have an adverse impact on the patient population. There is also a need to maintain a level of consistent service provision as the NHS enters recovery phase post Covid-19.
Following publication of this Notice, West Essex CCG will allow a 10-day standstill period prior to entering into the contract, pursuant to Regulation 99(3) (c) of the Public Contract Regulations 2015.


Winner: Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust
Award value: 32000000