Patient-transport vehicles

Tender description

The provision of Non-Emergency Patient Transport Services for Somerset Clinical Commissioning Group is being carried out using an Open Process. The County of Somerset covers a large geographical area. It has a dispersed, mainly rural population of approximately 540 000 people, with only 1 in 4 of its residents living in 1 of its 3 largest towns; Taunton; Yeovil; and Bridgwater. Somerset has 2 acute trusts within its borders (Taunton & Somerset NHS Foundation Trust and Yeovil District Hospital NHS Foundation Trust) as well as 13 community hospitals (run by Somerset Partnership NHS Foundation Trust) and 75 GP practices. The Somerset population also relies on access to services in a number of neighbouring out of county trusts. These journeys, referred to as Zone B journeys, are generally for services which are more specialist in nature. Full details of the specification, activity, scope and requirements can be found in the Contract documentation and the Specification is supported with detailed journey information, maps and background information. Bidders must be aware of the range of settings of care and the challenges that this diversity presents in terms of the resourcing and planning processes as well as its impact on the load factor and the ratio of loaded to unloaded mileage. Bidders should consider ways of achieving improvements against the current performance. In constructing the tender the Commissioners have taken steps to ensure that there is an attractive, clear and robust specification and workload for bidders to respond to. — The Specification excludes car journeys and PTS ambulance journeys which require the support of qualified crews — The Commissioners have focussed the NEPTS contract on the core ‘traditional’ PTS workload looking to utilise multi-use vehicles to deliver an efficient and effective service. — Out of area journeys (Zone C) are included within the contract base but with a separate payment tariff. — The Patient Transport Advice Centre and Authorised Booking staff in the Trusts will make the booking requests and manage the eligibility criteria. We are actively seeking flexible and solution-orientated companies who are keen to make a positive mark in the NEPTS market. Our 3 key success factors to achieve from this procurement are: — The provision of a quality, flexible and responsive service which meets the contracted performance targets. — Excellent communication — IT and booking systems across the stakeholder community. — Sustainability — an operational model which strives for innovation and efficiency with experience of delivery. The duration of the agreement will be for 60 months, with an option to extend to up 24 months.