Evaluation consultancy services

Tender description

1) Background The Rapid Diagnostic Centres (RDCs) programme is a new programme of work in England which will contribute to the ambition of the NHS long term plan to improve earlier and faster diagnosis for those diagnosed with cancer. In time, RDCs will offer: — access to a diagnostic pathway for all patients with symptoms that could indicate cancer, and — a personalised, accurate and rapid diagnosis of patients’ symptoms by integrating existing diagnostic provision and utilising networked clinical expertise and information locally. The RDC vision will be achieved by taking a phased approach to implementation. In 2019/20, RDCs will develop services for cohorts of patients with non-specific symptoms and for patients with site-specific symptoms where current two week wait, or 62-day pathways have been identified as under performing. Whilst RDCs will be established for patients with symptoms that could indicate cancer, most patients seen by an RDC will not have cancer. 1) Background The Rapid Diagnostic Centres (RDCs) programme is a new programme of work in England which will contribute to the ambition of the NHS long term plan to improve earlier and faster diagnosis for those diagnosed with cancer. In time, RDCs will offer: — access to a diagnostic pathway for all patients with symptoms that could indicate cancer, and — A personalised, accurate and rapid diagnosis of patients’ symptoms by integrating existing diagnostic provision and utilising networked clinical expertise and information locally. The RDC vision will be achieved by taking a phased approach to implementation. In 2019/20, RDCs will develop services for cohorts of patients with non-specific symptoms and for patients with site-specific symptoms where current 2 week wait, or 62-day pathways have been identified as under performing. Whilst RDCs will be established for patients with symptoms that could indicate cancer, most patients seen by an RDC will not have cancer. A key wider benefit of RDCs will therefore be diagnosing serious non-cancer conditions more efficiently. 2) Scope of commission NHS England and Improvement is looking to award a contract to a national evaluation partner to comprehensively evaluate the RDC programme across all 20 Cancer Alliances from 2019/20 to 2023/24. The evaluation will be 5 fold, on condition of prescribed break clauses: — the collection and collation of key management information to understand progress towards programme delivery, — desk research and process evaluation to understand approaches to implementation and barriers and enablers to programme delivery, — descriptive pathway analysis to understand the sequencing and number of diagnostic tests, and pathway length, — to establish and develop methodological approach for impact and economic evaluation, with identification strategy for appropriate counterfactual (comparator group), and — Conduct impact and economic evaluation, collate and interpret data to provide a programme-wide summative evaluation. 3) Evaluation themes to be addressed The evaluation should address the following five overarching themes: — implementation: what approaches to implementation have cancer alliances taken? — earlier and faster diagnosis: do RDCs lead to a shorter time to diagnosis? Are RDCs associated with a shift towards earlier diagnosis? — capacity, demand and resource utilisation: what is the impact of RDCs on demand for diagnostic services and onward resource utilisation? — unwarranted variation: what was the impact of RDCs on addressing unwarranted variation in stage at, and speed of, diagnosis? — Patient experience: what are patients’ experience of being referred to an RDC? 4) Reporting Reporting will be required in three timeframes: Monthly Monthly management information reports will be submitted to NHS England and Improvement to understand progress with implementation of RDCs locally. Six-monthly Six monthly reporting will be submitted to NHS England and Improvement addressing the prescribed evaluation themes. Evaluation questions should be addressed at both cancer alliance and national programme levels and identify best practice learning points relevant at each level. Final summative report A final summative evaluation report will be submitted to NHS England and Improvement setting out: — a consolidation and summary of interim reports, — comparison of different RDC operating models including identification of learning and best practice to inform future iterations of the RDC model, and — analysis and insight structured around each of the evaluation themes.