Public procurement notice: Modification Of A Contract/Concession During Its Term
Published: 2020-02-10
Buyer: NHS Commissioning Board (NHS England South (South Central and South West)
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Open procedure
CPV classification: 85000000

Technical requirements: Healthcare for Detained Settings Across Thames Valley, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire
The following prisons in the United Kingdom: HMP Bristol, HMP Leyhill, HMP Erlestoke, HMP Ashfield, HMP Eastwood Park.
NHS England sought to procure healthcare provision for adult males, young people, women, immigration detainees, foreign national prisoners and older prisoners in prisons and an Immigration Removal Centre (IRC).
The scope of the service provision model comprised the populations of the 11 in-scope establishments across Thames Valley, Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Gloucestershire. The Tender was split into 3 lots:
— an integrated and coherent healthcare delivery model across the 3 lots comprising the 11 establishments as aligned to both local healthcare systems and to local offender management pathways,
— the 3 key strategic commissioning goals for offenders' health: to reduce health inequalities; to ensure services are integrated and to reduce health risk factors,
— improved provider capability and capacity, including effective and simplified contracting models with robust subcontracting and supply chain arrangements to deliver improved service quality and performance,
— greater value for money from whole system capability and capacity, including more efficient operations underpinned by strengthened contract management arrangements, and
— cost improvement from testing the market through a competitive tender to secure new provision through contract(s) award and a subsequent innovative contracting model (prime contractor model).
The following prisons in the United Kingdom: HMP Bristol, HMP Leyhill, HMP Erlestoke, HMP Ashfield, HMP Eastwood Park.
Following a procurement process, the contract awarded following the procurement described above (‘Contract’) was awarded to Bristol Community Health CIC (‘BCH’) in 2016 with an expiry date of 31.3.2021. Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust (‘AWP’) and Hanham Health (‘Hanham’) are subcontractors. All 3 organisations are part of the InspireBetterHealth (‘IBH’) partnership.
BCH has served notice to terminate the Contract, originally on 31.9.2020, owing to the majority of its clinical staff having transferred to another undertaking following a separate, unrelated procurement. The authority has been informed that BCH will, instead, now be wound up from 31.3.2020 and therefore will not be in a position to deliver any clinical services from that date. As such, an earlier termination date of 31.3.2020 has been agreed. The authority proposes to novate the Contract to AWP from 31.3.2020 for the remainder of the contract term, with Hanham as a subcontractor to AWP (rather than to BCH, as currently). There is an expectation that moving the service to AWP will also incur an additional cost to the authority of 1 979 000 GPB per annum in addition to the existing contract value. This cost represents the additional work which AWP must undertake in order to assume responsibility for delivering the services being performed by BCH (e.g. HR costs and costs associated with retaining agency staff given the significant reduction in staff working for BCH in a Head Office/Back Office capacity) and for reasons aimed at maintaining the stability of the services, implementation of new National service specifications and maximising the retention of experienced clinical staff.
If the arrangement described above does not proceed, an alternative provider will need to be found; the authority estimates that a new procurement process would require a minimum of 18 months owing to the complexity of the service, a wider Ministry of Justice reconfiguration process and the implementation of new national service specifications. Therefore, the authority believes that it is not possible for it to run an effective and robust procurement exercise that will allow a new provider to take over the services from 1.4.2020.
The modification described by this notice therefore entails the letting of the Contract to AWP from 1.4.2020 until 31.3.2022. It is the authority’s intention at this point to carry out a comprehensive, robust procurement exercise for the re-provision of in-scope services beyond 31.3.2022.
The Contract (and this modification) only relates to Lot 3 of the 2016 procurement. Lots 1 and 2 thereof are not subject to modification and are not affected.


Winner: Bristol Community Health CIC