Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-11-08
Buyer: Castle Point and Rochford Clinical Commissioning Group
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 85100000: Health services
Estimated value: 385000 GBP
Award criteria: The most economic tender

Technical requirements: Falls Early Intervention Vehicle for Castle Point and Rochford and Southend Clinical Commissioning Groups.
Castle Point and Rochford and Southend Clinical Commissioning Group wish to pilot a 12 month Falls Early Intervention Vehicle (EIV) service targeting appropriate falls patients, increasing ambulance see and treat rates, reducing ambulance conveyances and A&E attendances, and reducing non-elective admissions to Southend Hospital.
The aim of the scheme is to safely care for people in their own homes, where an acute admission to hospital may have previously been provided. This model will further prevent unnecessary hospital re-admissions and would positively impact on patient quality and safety.
The vehicle will be staffed by a trained Paramedic and an Occupational Therapist, attending to 999 calls with a ‘falls’ related dispatch code for ‘Green 1 — 4’ and ‘Red 1’ responses in the Castle Point and Rochford CCG and Southend CCG areas.
The EIV service will be provided by a multi-disciplinary team consisting of an EEAST Paramedic and a Community Occupational Therapy (OT) in operation from 7:00 to 19:00, 7 days a week. The EIV will deliver streamlined, cohesive, patient focused care enabling rapid access to support services.
It is expected that the service will have the capacity to respond to between 5 and 8 calls per day, with the potential to respond to more depending on distance between calls and ‘Red 1’ response demand.
The service will include lifting patients and carrying out medical interventions at home where possible, providing patients with holistic assessments, equipment and referrals to appropriate services to support and maintain patients within their place of residence, therefore reducing admissions and improving the patient's experience. The provider will have the ability to act as a conduit between acute, community, social care, voluntary, and preventative services for falls patients.
The incumbent provider for blue light 999 ambulance responses in South East Essex is East of England Ambulance Service Trust (EEAST). Essex Partnership University Trust (EPUT) is the South East Essex provider for the community services the early intervention vehicle team will be referring patients in to and utilising.
There is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the service can only be provided through adaptation of the current blue light response, satisfying the Procurement Contract Regulations 2015 Reg32(2)(b):—2) Where the works, supplies or services can only be supplied by a particular economic operator — ii) competition is absent for technical reasons. Due to interdependencies between assignment of the vehicle and referral back to main control room for conveyance requirements, effectively there is only one capable provider (EEAST).
EEAST will work with EPUT to deliver this service to patients within the Castle Point and Rochford and Southend footprint for a period of 1 year as a pilot project. This project will help to support decision making regarding the future procurement of this service model. Please note that the publication of this notice does not commit either Castle Point and Rochford or Southend CCG to any further procurement process and they reserve the right not to procure these services in the future.
This contract award is on behalf of NHS Castle Point and Rochford Clinical Commissioning Group (contract lead) and NHS Southend Clinical Commissioning Group.
There is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the service can only be provided through adaptation of the current blue light response, satisfying the Procurement Contract Regulations 2015 Reg32(2)(b):—2) Where the works, supplies or services can only be supplied by a particular economic operator — ii) competition is absent for technical reasons. Due to interdependencies between assignment of the vehicle and referral back to main control room for conveyance requirements, effectively there is only one capable provider (EEAST).


Winner: East of England Ambulance Service
Award value: 385000