Public procurement notice: Contract Notice
Published: 2016-12-03
Buyer: The Secretary of State for Health (acting through The Department of Health) (the ‘Authority’) c/o Ambulance Radio Programme
Country: UK
Region: UNITED KINGDOM
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Competitive dialogue
CPV classification: 30210000 | 30211200 | 30212000 | 30215000 | 32000000
Estimated value: 14420000 GBP
Submission deadline: 2017-01-05
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: The Authority is seeking to procure Ambulance Mobilisation Application and Associated Services (‘MP1’) on behalf of itself, the Secretary of State for Health and the 13 NHS Trusts/Foundation Trusts/Ambulance Trusts (the ‘Trusts’) listed in Annex A.
The Secretary of State for Health will sign the procured contract, whilst the Trusts will be the service recipients for the purposes of that contract.
MP1 forms part of the Authority's Mobile Data and Vehicle Solution Programme (‘MDVS’), and the wider Ambulance Radio Programme (‘ARP’). The ARP aims to roll out and deliver an integrated control room and mobile data vehicle solution for the NHS Ambulance service nationally in England, and potentially in the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust (‘WAST’) and the Scottish Ambulance Service Board (‘SAS’).
WAST and/or SAS may decide not to adopt MP1, so bidders should note that they both remain optional Service Recipients. Please see further detail provided below.
MP1 will comprise Mobilisation Application and Associated Services. MP1 will be procured using the competitive dialogue procedure in accordance with Regulation 30 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (‘PCR’). The competitive dialogue procedure will take place in successive stages and the dialogue will continue until the authority can identify a solution capable of meeting its needs (Regulations 30(12) and (14) PCR). The authority does not intend to carry out a dialogue in relation to all aspects of its requirement, further information is provided in the procurement documents.
Bidders should treat both WAST and SAS as within the scope of this procurement and should assume the same solution is required for these as the other 11 Trusts.
The duration of the contract in months specified in section II.2.7) comprises up to 24 months for the Implementation Phase and 60 months for the Operational Phase each as defined and further described in section VI.3) and the procurement documents. The option to extend the contract as identified in II.2.7) is further described in section V1.3) and the procurement documents. The estimated total value of the MP1 contract specified in section II.1.5) is for the duration of the contract specified in section II.2.7) and includes the optional scope of the WAST and SAS contracting authorities and the value associated with the maximum possible contract extension of 2 years.
The Mobilisation Application will enable mission critical communications between responding resources and control rooms. The scope of MP1 includes delivery of a highly available and resilient Ambulance Mobilisation Application solution to enable dispatchers and other control room staff to rapidly communicate timely and accurate information as efficiently as possible to responders such as Paramedics, Nurses, GP's, and community responders. The solution will need to be capable of meeting the needs of a 24/7 and 365 (or 366) days ambulance service, and will provide enhancements to existing commercial offerings readily available in the market to include: specific ambulance service functionality and system interfaces; other mission critical public safety functionality and services, including appropriate security, additional resilience, and enhanced availability. The supplier will also provide a series of associated services including: design; development; acceptance; transition; deployment; testing; maintenance; support; and training services as further set out in Schedule 2.1 (Services Description) of Part C of the ITPD, which also includes current device, vehicle and user numbers.
MP1 will maximise the use of open standards and support the use of published application programme interfaces. MP1 will be managed by a multi-disciplinary authority team capable of guiding developments whilst adopting agile methodologies to ensure users requirements are met.
The MP1 solution will not be required to connect to any legacy systems, although the Supplier will need to support users as they transition from the incumbent supplier, Airwave, to the Emergency Services Network (‘ESN’) and from the legacy MDVS to the new MDVS. The authority is looking for a supplier who can develop an end-to-end design for MDVS and introduce transformation change to the current software solution.
Implementation of MP1 will be phased across each Trust and roll-out must be completed by the expiry of the authority's current ARP contracts.
The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.
The authority only intends to purchase hardware from the supplier which is bespoke to the software which it is offering to provide. The authority does not intend to purchase commercial off the shelf (COTS) hardware or any other hardware in this procurement (which is not bespoke).
Please see the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (‘PQQ’). The Authority intends to invite 6 applicants to participate in competitive dialogue but reserves the right to invite less than 6 in accordance with Regulation 65 of the PCR, as set out in the PQQ.
The authority has the option of extending the contract as set out in II.2.7). WAST and SAS have the option of using the services which the authority is procuring by means of this contract notice. Please refer to section II.2.4) and VI.3) for further details.

Eligibility requirements: Please refer to the PQQ Document.

Award value: 14420000