Pathology services

Tender description

Ipswich and East Suffolk CCG, North East Essex CCG and West Suffolk CCG have been reviewing pathology services delivered within the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP). The CCG believes the acute trusts within the STP are uniquely placed to continue to deliver the pathology services within the localities. The acute trusts have integrated the total demand within the STP footprint, from acute divisions, community services and primary care; removing the clinical risks of service fragmentation; realised economies of scale and removed the potential of duplication of testing. The intention is to commission the pathology services through the three acute trusts working collaboratively under a single contract. The 3 acute trusts listed at II.2.14 currently deliver pathology services for the Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP). The acute trusts took over the delivery of the pathology services after the cessation of The Pathology Partnership (TPP) which commenced in 2014. The cessation of TPP outlined a number of issues which have provided learning for the CCGs and has evidenced the need to retain the services within the acute trust’s portfolio of services. The majority of pathology tests are ordered by the acute trusts via their in-house services and therefore potentially moving the community and primary care tests to another provider would introduce additional risks and issues, such as: — potential clinical risks from different service providers with different clinical IT systems, — reduction in economies of scale, — loss of clinical support and governance within the acute trusts, — potentially destabilises the core pathology function within the acute Trusts, — goes against STP priorities and strategies. The CCGs are to begin a process to ascertain whether the existing acute providers are uniquely placed and would be most capable of delivering the pathology services through joint clinical governance and workforce management arrangements. This process will assess whether Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust, West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust and Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust are the most capable providers and therefore uniquely placed to deliver the service specification and associated benefits. The services covered by the arrangement may change and expand as the partnerships develop through a contract of up to five (5) plus two (2) years.