Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-10-28
Buyer: North West London Collaboration of Clinical Commissioning Groups
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 85100000: Health services
Estimated value: 35000000 GBP

Technical requirements: West London CCG is acting as the lead commissioner for this contract which is on behalf of the NWL Collaboration of CCGs, comprising:
This VEAT notice is intended to provide notice of the CCGs' intention to award a 2 year contract to the incumbent providers of NHS 111 and GP Out of Hours services, to pilot an Integrated Urgent Care service across the STP footprint of North West London, in line with IUC national standards released in August 2017 under publications gateway reference 07150 and 07092.
This will be a short term 2 year contract awarded to the incumbent providers of NHS 111 and GP Out of Hours services in North West London to enable the delivery the national standards released in August 2017, to patients in North West London (NWL), from 1.4.2018, on a pilot basis. This contract is awarded under the existing financial envelope and will be reported on an open book basis to ensure clarity over cost and activity. Alongside the pilot, the CCGs will run an open competition (beginning in the financial year 2019/20) for the main contract for Integrated Urgent Care services (expected to be a 5 year contract), going live at the start of April 2020. During the pilot, activity data and service data will be gathered which will inform the open procurement for the future 5 year contract.
The CCGs intend to operate quarterly engagement forums with interested providers with immediate effect to share data and information about the development of the service in order to ready themselves and the market for the full procurement in 2018/19. Any providers interested in attending these meetings should contact: iuc.nwl@nhs.net
There are technical reasons why a provider that has not operated in NWL will face significant challenge in mobilising the 2 year pilot service in time for 1.4.2018 to the IUC national standards, especially due to the nature of the GP opted in and opted out services. There are 200 individual contracts with GP practices and a rapid change is likely to destabilise primary care. A rapid change (for a short term 2 year pilot only–with a further change in 2020 when the main contract goes live) is likely to destabilise primary care with a knock-on impact to patients.
Further the CCGs will focus on collecting a large amount of data and information (building on that currently available) during the first year of the pilot to inform the future procurement exercise for the main 5 year contract. As such, the CCGs consider that from a technical mobilisation, timing and stability perspective, only the current incumbent providers of NHS 111 and GP Out of Hours services are able to run the pilot.
Alongside the pilot, the CCGs clear intention is to run an open and transparent procurement process (starting in 2019/20) for the main contract going live at the start of April 2020. Information and data from the pilot will be shared with interested providers. It is essential that during the pilot the CCGs:
Collect data required to produce a well-structured model for the procurement, around patient flow, activity to and from the hub, GP telephony, face-to-face contacts etc. Access to this data at a clinical level is currently not available and will be collected over the first year of the pilot.
Profiling of the Directory of Services ensuring the CCG-commissioned pathways are utilised (allowing the patient connection with their most appropriate care provision) is vital to the success of the economic and patient evaluation. It could create a significant clinical risk if not mobilised correctly and, for example, patients' records become unavailable and/or patients are transferred to inappropriate services.
Assess the impact of other key pilots currently operating across NWL STP and nationally, impact on this new model and the required provision e.g. frailty and care homes.
Understand how NWL urgent care services can be coordinated, and how NWL can best utilise the finite clinical labour at its disposal. This is critical to the success of the NWL IUC service and includes extended hours, UCCs/UTCs and walk in provision, community/rapid response and mental health.


Winner: Care UK
Award value: 35000000