Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2017-10-04
Buyer: NHS Central London CCG
Country: UK
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 85100000: Health services
Estimated value: 9000000 GBP

Technical requirements: Central London CCG intends to contract with at-scale general practice networks or organisations for a single integrated contract of enhanced primary care services from 1st April 2018. This will bring a range of current enhanced services provided in primary care settings into a single offer of aligned and simplified Primary Care Standards. These include current services in the Out of Hospital Services contracts. This single contract will reduce the transactional burden on both the CCG and practices, ensuring a broader population health based approach and supporting collaboration across the delivery of care to all patients in the central London area. It will support the consistency of standards across primary care at scale. The contract focusses primarily on improving the health of patients with complex needs and long term conditions (e.g. respiratory, cardiovascular) but also includes other areas of health care (e.g. patient experience, access and demand management).
Central London CCG is due to contract with at-scale general practice networks or organisations. This contract does not impact on the nationally agreed core GMS/PMS/APMS contracts, or their requirements, but is dependent on the delivery of care in a primary care setting and is linked to the provision of list based care. Many services require delivery at scale for the benefit of practices and patients, with inter-practice referral arrangements in place. This means that the partnership in practice contract may be legitimately commissioned exclusively from at-scale general practice networks or organisations. This is defined as:
a legal entity whose membership includes, or who can demonstrate the ability to sub-contract with, Central London CCG based providers who deliver essential primary medical services to a list of patients under either General Medical Services Contract (GMS), Personal Medical Services Contract (PMS) or Alternative Provider Medical Services Contract (APMS) membership of local list-based providers
a defined network (underpinned by a memorandum of understanding) of Central London CCG based providers who deliver essential primary medical services to a list of patients under either General Medical Services Contract (GMS), a defined network Personal Medical Services Contract (PMS) or Alternative Provider Medical Services Contract (APMS).
This procurement approach has been agreed by an independent review panel convened in September 2017 which has recommended the most appropriate provider of these services to be at scale general practice networks or organisations.
An on-going process of provider assurance and provider development will be in place from October 2017 as part of this contracting approach, to ensure that new primary care at-scale organisations are ready and capable to hold the contract from 1 April 2018.
The contract will be for a period of 2 years from 1.4.2018, with the potential to extend for a further 2 year term. The new contractual arrangements will reduce the transactional burden on the CCG and GP practices, releasing management and clinical time to focus on the delivery of patient care. The contract will also support the consistency of standards across primary care.
Currently primary care is commissioned in a fragmented way through a number of different contracts, with practices required to deliver against separate schemes. Further to an Independent Panel recommendation in September 2017, the award of this contract can only be made to a limited pool of providers — i.e. at-scale general practice networks or organisations. Central London CCG therefore intends to contract with at-scale general practice networks or organisations for a single integrated contract from 1.4.2018. This single contract will reduce transactional burdens on the CCG and practices, support better patient population coverage and support collaboration in caring for patients. The contract focusses primarily on improving the health of patients with complex needs and long term conditions, but also includes other areas of health care. The contract will also support the consistency of standards across primary care.


Winner: At-scale primary care organisations are currently in development
Award value: 9000000