Health services

Tender description

Provision of Integrated Sexual Health Services for Kent. Currently this service is provided by Kent Community Health Foundation Trust and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust however this contract will expire on 31.3.2019. Kent County Council’s strategic direction for sexual health services is to create a collaboration with the current providers forming a strategic partnership for the provision of sexual health services. It is felt that this collaborative arrangement could offer all parties a number of benefits including financial efficiency and acceleration of the STP. Since these services were put in place in 2013 there have been a number of important strategic changes, most notably the development of the Kent and Medway Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP). The leaders of all of the NHS organisations including (KCHFT and MTW) in Kent and Medway have worked with KCC and Medway Council to develop the STP, which sets out a whole-system vision for transformation. KCC have been working with current providers to create strategic partnerships in order to collaborate in the interest of service users. The development of the STP and MCPs represents an opportunity for the delivery of radical change for the health and social care system in Kent. It presents KCC and its partners in the NHS and local councils with significant new opportunities for cooperation and collaboration in the public interest that will deliver substantial improvements in health and care services and significant health gains for the population as well as better value for money. It builds on the duty that already exists to exercise functions with a view to integrating the provision of care and support provision, under the Care Act 2014 (“CA 2014”), with health provision (Section 3, CA 2014). The parties are also under a duty, under s.82 of the NHS Act 2006, to co-operate with one another in order to secure and advance the health and welfare of the people of England and Wales. KCC entered into a strategic partnership arrangement with KCHFT in 2017 after it was identified that this type of collaborative arrangement was key to maximising the impact of the STP’s prevention strategy. This arrangement has been very successful in enabling both KCC and KCHFT to achieve common objectives. It is believed that a similar approach with MTW would bring additional benefits to the sexual health service provision most notably allowing us to more efficiently manage budgets, accelerate the STP and have flexibility to align to evolving health structures. The rules that govern public sector procurement allow for contracts which establish or implement co-operation between public sector bodies such as KCC and MTW and do not require them to be concluded through competition. The relevant extract from the legal regulations is as follows: ”12(7) A contract concluded exclusively between 2 or more Contracting Authorities falls outside the scope of this part where all of the following conditions are fulfilled: (a) the contract establishes or implements a cooperation between the participating Contracting Authorities with the aim of ensuring that public services they have to perform are provided with a view to achieving objectives they have in common; (b) the implementation of that cooperation is governed solely by considerations relating to the public interest; and (c) the participating Contracting Authorities perform on the open market less than 20 % of the activities concerned by the cooperation.”