Health services

Tender description

The aim of this commissioned service is to give the registered population of Southend on Sea greater access to general practice staff during core hours. This is in addition to the national Extended Hours Access Directly Enhanced Service DES and the various access KPIs in PMS and APMS contracts. This service will provide additional clinical capacity in general practice, at a time when there is considerable pressure on healthcare services as a result of rising patient demand. This will be achieved through a range of strategies to manage demand including: — common signposting / clinical triaging processes, — a service delivering same day and planned appointments, — reducing unnecessary non-value adding activity Specifically the service must aim to: — Release GP capacity by diverting 20-25 % of GP appointments to an appropriate allied health professional, — Reduce unnecessary GP involvement by managing patient needs differently, enabling GPs to re-invest into the management of complex long term conditions, with potential to increase the length of routine appointment to 15 minutes (as recommended by BMA), — Ensure a greater availability of same day GP appointments for patients with urgent clinical need within practices and across the locality, supporting wider system resilience, — Increase patient and carer understanding of self-limiting illness and steps to minimise the impact of illness, — Improve staff satisfaction by introducing new ways of working, — Through providing increased capacity in Primary Care, have the potential to reduce and prevent acute care unplanned emergency attendances and admissions The service must: — Offer a range of appointments that must meet the following requirements: —— Access to pre-bookable and same day appointments to general practice services during core hours with an extended range of staff who meet the needs of the patients within each locality, —— Signed up Memorandum of Understanding from each Practice to access their registered list of patients, —— Provide robust evidence, based on utilisation rates, for the proposed disposition of services throughout the week o Maximise the potential for appointments booked via NHS 111/OOH, General Practice or other stakeholders to ensure good patient flow and patient experience, —— Maximise digital access to appointments via a range of SMS text, online appointment booking, telephone consultations and online consultation software, —— Improve patient choice by offering a range of appropriate health professionals during core and extended hours, ensuring a joined-up service between primary care, urgent care and social care where appropriate, — Ensure effective cross-system working with: —— EPUT Community Services including Care Co-ordination services —— SUHFT – GP streaming, A&E front door model and acute navigation services The CCG is made up of 4 localities East East Central West Central West, Services will be delivered in each of these. Bidders may propose to provide services in 1 or more of these.