Section one: Contracting authority
one.1) Name and addresses
NHS England
Skipton House, 80 London Road
London
SE1 6LH
Contact
Aarron Chapman
Country
United Kingdom
NUTS code
UKI31 - Camden and City of London
Internet address(es)
Main address
Buyer's address
one.2) Information about joint procurement
The contract is awarded by a central purchasing body
one.3) Communication
Additional information can be obtained from the above-mentioned address
Electronic communication requires the use of tools and devices that are not generally available. Unrestricted and full direct access to these tools and devices is possible, free of charge, at
https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome
one.4) Type of the contracting authority
Body governed by public law
one.5) Main activity
Health
Section two: Object
two.1) Scope of the procurement
two.1.1) Title
NHS England- Provision of Tiger Teams to Support EPR Delivery
Reference number
C235566
two.1.2) Main CPV code
- 75122000 - Administrative healthcare services
two.1.3) Type of contract
Services
two.1.4) Short description
The Frontline Digitisation (FD) programme is working with provider organisations to support them in reaching a minimum level of digital capability (as defined by the Digital Capabilities Framework) and to have an electronic patient record (EPR) in place by the end of March 2026. For the purposes of this service, provider organisations are defined as NHS secondary care Trusts providing acute, specialist, community, mental health, and ambulance services.
To fulfil this ambition, the FD Programme are seeking a partner to create an experienced, multi-skilled, rapid response intervention service also known as a Tiger Teams service, capable of supporting EPR Delivery across England.
This service will be an expansion to an existing comprehensive support offer available to providers, designed to support the national demand for resource, expertise, and information necessary to successfully rollout EPRs.
two.1.5) Estimated total value
Value excluding VAT: £13,333,333.33
two.1.6) Information about lots
This contract is divided into lots: No
two.2) Description
two.2.2) Additional CPV code(s)
- 72590000 - Computer-related professional services
two.2.3) Place of performance
NUTS codes
- UKI31 - Camden and City of London
two.2.4) Description of the procurement
Service Required
The current expectation is that the service will be a single operator framework (i.e. a framework agreement awarded to a single supplier or a single consortium), which will be statement of work-based, with set deliverables defined for each work package which will be individual to the discovery / intervention required for each Trust. Any call off contracts awarded under the framework will only be initiated by NHS England (not directly by NHS providers). Please note that the Contract Authority may elect to use a different sourcing route to the single-supplier framework approach described above.
The budget available to spend on this framework will be approximately £16,000,000 (inclusive of VAT) for the delivery of work packages to providers.
The procurement will be conducted via an open tender and advertised through Find a Tender Service.
The service will need to provide the following to achieve its aim of increasing the quality of EPR delivery and reduce the risk of poor EPR deployment, which, in turn, will reduce the potential loss of benefit of EPR deployments in England:
• Sourcing of NHS experienced, highly skilled resources, who can be deployed to support a work package at a provider organisation at any point of its EPR Programme Lifecycle.
• Sourcing and deployment of resources to support any provider on site across England in a timely manner.
• Flexibility to increase and decrease resources quickly to meet the demands of the service.
• Organisational working knowledge of best practice of EPR design, delivery, optimisation and usability and it's management.
• Knowledge transfer and retention within the NHS, including working with and alongside staff using a buddying-style approach, thus building skills and expertise which creates a more sustainable resourcing model going forward.
• Ability to build up a cohort of operators with specialist knowledge (cells) that can be deployed across the system on similar tasks, thereby enabling and accelerating the setting up of a virtual centre of expertise.
Market Engagement
The purpose of the market engagement is to publish to the market the Programme’s prospective intention to procure on behalf of NHS England and all NHS provider organisations. The Programme will share the key service requirements and contractual features for the service. The Programme wishes to establish whether the proposed service can be met in its current form by the supplier market in a way that provides good value for money.
The key draft documentation which will be shared as part of this engagement is as follows:
- the Service Description
- Key Contractual Features
- Operational Model
- Roles Required
- Evaluation Questions
- Statement of Work
- Commercial Model
The RFI will ask the market about their interest in bidding for this service, and seek to ensure that the proposed procurement of this service is:
- viable;
- competitive;
- clear and unambiguous;
- transparent; and
- provides value for money
The programme is also keen to hear whether there is anything outlined in the documentation which would pose a threat to the successful operation of a service or would discourage the market to bid for this framework.
The below are indicative timescales for the pre-tender market engagement;
In order to be involved in this pre-tender market engagement event, please respond to this PIN with your contact information by 29/01/2024 at 12:00. Suppliers who register to be involved in the pre-tender market engagement session will be sent an invitation and a Microsoft Teams link to the email address(es) the suppliers provide.
An initial engagement session for supplier clarification will be held on 01/02/2024.
It is anticipated that the documents will be shared with suppliers wishing to participate on 05/02/2024.
After the release of the tender documents, a second engagement session will be held on 08/02/2024 to provide an opportunity for participating suppliers to discuss any clarifications they have.
Suppliers will then have until 16/02/2024 to provide written responses to the pre-tender market engagement.
Any suppliers that choose not to participate in the pre-tender market engagement process will not be precluded from participating in any future procurement exercise.
two.2.14) Additional information
EPRs are notoriously complex to implement, and the maturity of the digital, data and technology (DDaT) workforce across England is varied, with providers having varying degrees of experience, and skills to implement successfully.
Often during EPR delivery, there is a requirement for either a planned, or unplanned, specific, time-bound skill set, capable of providing a set of deliverables, problem rectification or other specialist intervention for an element of the EPR Programme. Trusts are finding it increasingly challenging to obtain good quality, skilled short-term resources, both from the recruitment and contingent labour market.
To support Trusts to alleviate this issue, this service will provide Tiger Teams, defined as a group of highly skilled, experienced resources, commissioned to deliver a time-boxed service on behalf of the Trust where other attempts to fulfil the requirement have been unsuccessful.
The level of support provided to a Trust is set out in the FD Programme’s operating model. Universally, FD provides various assurance reviews for all Trusts throughout their EPR programme lifecycles to support them with their programmes. The assurance process highlights areas of good practice and strength, in addition to areas of concern, which require addressing to improve the quality of the programme.
The second tier of support the FD programme provides is via an FD Support Offer function, supported by a delivery partner, to provide knowledge, advice, guidance and training to Trusts. The Support Offer consists of the following:
• Collaboration - Connecting with Each Other
o Communities of Practice Forum
o Supplier-based Peer Networks
o Procurement Peer Networks
o Peer-to-peer Partnerships
• Knowledge - Sharing Best Practice
o Webinars, Events and Drop-in Sessions
o Guidance and Documents
o Lessons Learnt
o Blueprints
• Expertise - Upskilling and Actionable Learning
o Subject Matter Expert Support
o Self-learning Toolkits
o Targeted Intervention Support
o Learning Labs
There was also access to partially funded resource through the DDaT graduate recruitment programme, with ongoing recruitment to the end of March 2024.
Despite the wealth of support available, there is a requirement to further support Trusts with hands-on, ‘boots-on-ground' interventions to ensure that certain critical activities to resolve challenges, including the associated upskilling and knowledge transfer, are undertaken in a timely and robust manner, increasing the likelihood of a timely and successful implementation. It will also avoid the costs, risks and reputational damage associated with a delayed and / or sub-optimal go-live in addition to the impact required for the Trust to course-correct.
The FD programme is not resourced to provide hands-on targeted support into Trusts at the scale required, therefore an additional service is required to ensure the success of the overall programme and individual Trust EPR deployments.
two.3) Estimated date of publication of contract notice
18 March 2024
Section four. Procedure
four.1) Description
four.1.8) Information about the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)
The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes