Interconnection services

Tender description

NHS Digital has been tasked with delivering a Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) programme which will provide a new and significantly different networking arrangements for health and social care as part of its remit to provide successor services to the current NHS N3 network on behalf of the Secretary of State for Health. The HSCN will replace the current single-supplier N3 network with disaggregated and competitive multi-supplier marketplace for network services. The HSCN will create the effect of a single network across Heath and Social Care providers and their partners. The HSCN Peering Exchange Services will be a key supply chain component and will facilitate independent network interconnection between the disaggregated HSCN network service providers. The HSCN Peering Exchange Services may subsequently be procured by wider public bodies. Further details of this may be found at https://digital.nhs.uk/health-social-care-network. The procurement sought to secure a hosted network peering exchange solution and the management of the same. More detail was provided in the ITT and associated contract documentation. The winner of the procurement was determined by the lowest value of the Whole Life Costs divided by the Quality Criteria score (see II.2.5 below).