Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2020-03-31
Buyer: Public Health England
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Negotiated without a prior call for competition
CPV classification: 72319000: Data supply services

Technical requirements: PHE has a critical need to collect GP level vaccine coverage and flu-like-illness incidence surveillance data on a national scale. The data is used to monitor and report on the performance of the national immunisation programmes. The data is provided to PHE via ImmForm by each of the 4 main GP IT systems providers in the UK.
This contract is for extracting the relevant data from GP practice systems, processing the data and then forwarding to PHE. The supplier is required to complete weekly, monthly and annual vaccine extractions.
GP's choose their practice IT systems from one of the four suppliers listed above. These systems are used manage all practice activity and to record vaccine data. There is no scope to introduce additional suppliers to the market. The volume of the market allocated to each of the 4 suppliers is dictated by the number of GP practices that use each system across the UK.
Public Health England (PHE) has an ongoing business critical need to collect GP level vaccine coverage and flu-like-illness incidence surveillance data on a national scale. The data is used to monitor and report on the performance of the national immunisation programmes. Under contractual arrangements, the data is provided to PHE via ImmForm by each of the 4 main GP IT systems in the UK. These are:
The data is submitted to PHE via ImmForm on a weekly, monthly, annual or ad-hoc basis. PHE need to agree new contracts with each of the 4 data suppliers, to be dated from 1 April 2020, to secure the ongoing supply of GP data to ImmForm. The new contracts will accurately capture the purpose for the data collections so that wider stakeholders (e.g. NHS England) needs can be safeguarded.
There is currently no alternative way for PHE to receive the national vaccine coverage data which is of critical importance to the successful planning and delivery of the national immunisation programme.
PHE supports the view that the ongoing supply of this data should be secured from each of the 4 available data suppliers for up to 2 years by which time a replacement service is intended to be available from NHS Digital. This new solution may involve some parallel running during the course of the second year prior to transition.
Public Health England (PHE) has an ongoing business critical need to collect GP level vaccine coverage and flu-like-illness incidence surveillance data on a national scale. The data is used to monitor and report on the performance of the national immunisation programmes. Under existing contractual arrangements, the data is provided to PHE via ImmForm by each of the four main GP IT systems in the UK.
The data is submitted to PHE via ImmForm on a weekly, monthly, annual or ad-hoc basis. PHE need to agree new contracts with each of the four data suppliers from April 2020, to secure the ongoing supply of GP data to ImmForm. The new contracts will need to continue to accurately capture the purpose for the data collections so that wider stakeholders (e.g. NHS England) needs can be safeguarded. These needs were already addressed for the ongoing one year contract extensions.
There is currently no alternative way for PHE to receive the national vaccine coverage data and there is no option to 'walk away' from the arrangement as the data (in its entirety from all four of the possible suppliers) is of critical importance to the successful planning and delivery of the national immunisation programme. As a result, PHE Procurement supports the view that the ongoing supply of this data should once again be secured for each of the four available data suppliers.
In terms of negotiating strategy, because there is no option of engaging with a wider market to lever competition tension, or to forego the receipt of data (walking away), PHE is at a distinct disadvantage. However, there are a number of steps that can be taken during the negotiations for the new contracts to increase the likelihood of achieving good value for money (including improved quality of service).


Winner: Public Health England