Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2018-05-23
Buyer: Wirral University Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 72000000
Estimated value:  GBP

Technical requirements: The Trust has been nominated as a Northern Acute Global Digital Exemplar within NHS England’s ‘Driving Digital Maturity Programme’ as outlined https://www.england.nhs.uk/digitaltechnology/info-revolution/exemplars/acute-global-digital-exemplars/ (‘Fast Follower Programme’). The Contractor is the Trust’s supplier of the Trust’s Electronic Patient Care System ('EPCS') which the Contractor provides ('Existing Supplies') under a contract which is outlined in this notice (‘the Contract’). The Trust has entered into a partnership with Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (‘the Fast Follower’) in order to accelerate the Fast Follower’s digital maturity within the Fast Follower Programme (‘Fast Follower Partnership’). The Trust wishes to vary the Contract for Existing Supplies substantially to implement the Fast Follower Partnership, including making certain insubstantial changes in the interests of consistency with the Contractor’s current approach toward its contract with the Fast Follower in key areas where the contracts need to align to enable a shared service provision and also to clarify certain elements of the Contract as previously varied as outlined in this notice. The Trust justifies using the negotiated procedure without prior publication of a contract notice in whole or in part because this procurement involves:
1) an agreement where the Contractor (as developer and provider under the Existing Supplies of EPCS) is the only organisation with the technical knowledge of the Trust's EPCS and its underlying data structures to be able to continue to provide the existing EPCS.
2) an award only able to be to the Contractor because of the Contractor's existing exclusive property rights in the EPCS.
3) supplies consisting in the repetition of similar supplies to those under the Contract and in conformity with the basic project for which the Contract was awarded.
4) additional supplies by the Contractor which are intended as an extension of Existing Supplies where a change of supplier would oblige the Trust to acquire material having different technical characteristics to the Existing Supplies, which would result in incompatibility with Existing Supplies, or cause disproportionate technical difficulties in operation and maintenance of Existing Supplies:
4.1) Only the Contractor can fully isolate the Trust from performance risks due to Contractor's existing contractual guarantees that Contractor's own hardware and hosting infrastructure will support the Contractor-co-developed solution and its required performance levels over the term of the contract – which no other third party could guarantee on reasonable commercial terms due to not possessing the proprietary software, hardware, nor the existing contractual position;
4.2) The Contractor exclusively possesses or ever could possess the necessary technical knowledge of the co-developed solution correctly to maintain the EPCS;
4.3) The Contractor uniquely provides the Trust with a single point of contact to deal with technical issues avoiding the risk and latency of a multi-supplier scenario.