Health services

Tender description

GP out of hours (OOH) face to face (Base) and home visiting service. The service will provide base appointments, co-located with the local ED and, where appropriate, home visiting. — the service will provide base appointments, co-located with the local ED and, where appropriate, home visiting, — the service will be available if patients need to see a clinician outside of normal GP opening hours, i.e. the OOH service is available Monday to Fridays between 6.30 p.m. and 8.30 a.m. and 24 hours a day on weekends and bank holidays, — the service will also provide additional cover for west Kent practice educational events (these are usually held monthly, on an afternoon, from midday to practice close), — the service must provide OOH primary care medical services and will take referrals directly via NHS 111/CAS through direct appointment booking (DAB) through agreed operating procedures, — the service will complete a comprehensive assessment within an appropriate timescale for all patients referred and accepted into the service, — to ensure clinicians are available to assess and treat patients at the service bases, who require primary care OOH. The service will also carry out home visits in the patient’s own home or usual place of residence, which includes residential, nursing and extra care housing, — the OOH bases are co-located with the local EDs, and the provider will work closely alongside the ED teams, — the service will be GP led, this is the minimum requirement and it will not be deemed safe to operate the service without the physical availability of a GP. While the workforce should be multidisciplinary, the Commissioner would encourage the use of local GPs within the service, — face to face consultation at the base and/or home visits must be undertaken by suitably trained and experienced staff. This should be a GP or other competent clinician if appropriate, — the base appointments and home visiting should be provided in such a way that it forms part of the seamless integrated urgent care service, commencing with the call-handling service provided by the NHS 111 provider, through integration and coordination, — makes use of clinical records to provide good care to patients and ensure that the record of each contact is complete and made available to other health professionals (See Section 3.21 for IT requirements), — following discharge from the service appropriate information, clinical guidance and sign posting will be provided to the patient and their carer, if appropriate, and robust handovers will be undertaken with other care professionals, — the service will complete and send a discharge summary report within 24 hours to the patient’s own GP, and other agencies where appropriate, — works collaboratively and in the interests of the whole health system, for example to ensure that patients are provided with the most clinically appropriate pathway for their condition so that any impact on ED attendance, admissions and pressure on GP in-hours services, is appropriate and justified, — the provider shall ensure that effective systems are in place to ensure patients have prompt access to medicines they require with the appropriate dispensing arrangements in place, including prescription charging where applicable, — makes the best use of available technology to support the service aims whilst providing a robust framework and strong business continuity backup, — more broadly, the service must provide enhanced clinical quality leading to improvement in patient outcomes, thereby improving quality of life and decreasing mortality rates for urgent and emergency care conditions, — the provider will be expected to work flexibly with the CCG and partner providers in monitoring activity and outcomes to ensure the service can be refined over time to improve urgent and emergency care services.