Health services

Tender description

The Mid and South Essex Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) CCG Joint Committee want to procure a Non-emergency patient transport service (NEPTS), encompassing: — booking and eligibility assessment, — transportation of patients, and — on site support at NHS Acute Trusts. The Mid and South Essex Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) CCG Joint Committee have been working alongside key stakeholders and service users in developing the scope, design and procurement plans for a Non-Emergency patient transport service (NEPTS), encompassing: — booking and eligibility assessment, — transportation of patients, and — on-site support at NHS Acute Trusts. The resulting commissioning case proposes a single non-emergency patient transport service for the population of Mid and South Essex, for all land-based provision (across all ages) with the exception of secure Mental Health transport and transport currently funded by the Mid and South Essex Hospital (MSE) Group or resulting from the proposed acute reconfiguration. The scope of the project does not include a review or changes to the eligibility criteria. In addition, the service will be provided to patients registered with NHS West Essex CCG in relation to journeys to/from the Essex Cardiothoracic Centre. The service will primarily be delivered within Essex and surrounding areas. Journeys will also be delivered outside of the local area as a consequence of patient choice, where specialist care is required or for repatriation. NEPTS are a key enabler underpinning access to elective care and supporting timely and efficient discharge processes for acute and community inpatient providers. As a partner within the system, the NEPTS provider for Mid and South Essex will support improvements in the latter stages of urgent and emergency care pathways and continue to enable patient choice and equitable access for elective care. The service provider will be involved with a range of service developments including the consideration of additional low level/low risk journeys from within the 999 contract to the patient transport service (for example ‘GP Urgents’). The provider will work with the commissioner to explore the development of a technological solution to deliver active communication with patients and healthcare professionals. Two well-attended stakeholder workshops were undertaken in March 2019. Feedback on the current service was generally positive with acknowledgement of reliable, caring service provision. The main areas for improvement being management of expectations (for patients and healthcare professionals) through communication and improved discharge coordination with acute Trusts. Face to face patient engagement including an online survey took place between 16th May and 14th June. The responses allowed commissioners to quantify specific outcomes from the survey cohort but also recognise the unique individual experiences and improvement recommendations. The key themes for improvement on the service was the communication with patients regarding their collection, the reduction in waiting times for transport and the communication with patients and the booking centres, specifically availability of booking operators and recording of significant information. The clinical cabinet considered and supported the service specification in July 2019. An equality, quality and privacy impact assessment has been completed with no negative impacts being identified. During 2018/19, just under 180 000 journeys were undertaken across the in-scope NEPTS provision. Although there are no current plans in place that will change the expected activity levels for the in-scope provision, the proposed contract model will provide flexibility for any fundamental changes in activity to be adjusted for within the term of the contract. The NHS standard contract will apply to the NEPTS provision. A contract length of five years with an option to extend for a further 2 years is proposed. The proposed contract model for the NEPTS is a block, with tolerance levels. The tolerance levels will be based on percentage of activity over/under performance against plan. Activity will be weighted based on mobility and journey distance to reflect impact on resources.