Operation of an educational centre

Tender description

This is a prior information notice for the forthcoming concession contract for a single partner who will deliver a new Test of Competence — Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) on behalf of the NMC. The new OSCE will apply to prospective nursing associates who trained outside England and to nurses and midwives who trained outside the UK who wish to practise in the UK. Further details can be found under Section II.2.4 (Description of the procurement) of this notice. A nursing associate will be a new member of the nursing team who will provide care and support for patients and service users. It will be a stand-alone profession in its own right and will also provide a progression route into graduate level nursing. Our nursing associate standards of proficiency will represent the standards of knowledge and skill that a nursing associate will need to meet in order to be considered by the NMC as capable of safe and effective practice. The OSCE for nursing associates will test applicants against our nursing associate standards of proficiency to ensure that they are capable of safe and effective practice. The OSCE for nursing associates must be available to applicants by early 2019. The OSCE for nurses and midwives who trained outside the UK will be based on our new UK pre-registration nursing standards that we launched in May 2018 and will be delivered to ensure that all candidates are able to demonstrate their ability to practice safely and effectively before registering with us. These new OSCEs for nursing associates, nurses and midwives will form part of the NMC’s current review of its overseas registration process and we are looking to appoint a delivery partner to work with us to provide these OSCEs for a period of 3 years (with options to extend by up to 12 months in 2 annual increments). The OSCEs must be available to applicants across the UK and will be paid for by applicants, with a cost cap set by the NMC. Further details can be found in the market engagement questionnaire. The NMC has issued this Prior Information Notice (PIN) in order to conduct a market engagement exercise ahead of a forthcoming concession services tender for the provision of Test of Competence OSCE delivery. Before tendering a new contract for these services the NMC wishes to better understand the market and variety of options available which will help inform the eventual procurement exercise. Providers interested in partaking in this market engagement exercise are requested to express an interest in this PIN via the In-tend e-Sourcing portal before midday on 15.6.2018. Upon receipt the NMC will issue a short market engagement questionnaire to all interested parties which needs to be completed and returned to us via the portal by midday 22.6.2018 to allow us to gather feedback from the market and assist in developing the procurement strategy.