NHSX Market Engagement Questionnaire for Digital Pharmacy, Optometry, Dentistry, Ambulance and Community (PODAC) - Ambulance Services

Tender description

NHSX are conducting market engagement with interested suppliers to investigate the current market capabilities to develop possible solutions to shape the digital technology solutions available to Ambulance services as part of NHSX's Digital Pharmacy, Optometry, Dentistry, Ambulance and Community (PODAC) programme. For clarity this Market Engagement exercise is for Ambulance services only. Other Market Engagement exercises for other areas of PODAC may or may not be undertaken. Interested suppliers are invited to complete a questionnaire that has been designed to develop an understanding of the current maturity of suppliers in the market and the ability to meet the digital PODAC capabilities. The questionnaire and further detail on the digital PODAC capabilities are available via the Intend e-procurement system. This engagement is an information gathering exercise only. It will help inform the PODAC commercial strategy and any possible future procurement process and is not a procurement exercise in itself. Lot 1: In early 2019, NHSEI published the National Ambulance Digital Strategy which aimed, through "local delivery with national support" to: ● Provide excellent patient care using resilient and high-quality digital services ● Deliver digital services for patients and frontline operations ● Become the gateway to the wider healthcare economy In 2021, NHSX carried out further engagement with ambulance stakeholders, which identified the following areas as the key digital priorities for the sector ● accelerate the adoption of new technologies ● improve the resilience and capability of the control room ● support the transformation of the UEC pathway The project aims to understand the availability of solutions that can support NHSX to further digitise ambulance services by enabling ambulance services to more effectively connect with each other and with other healthcare providers right along the urgent and emergency care (UEC) pathway. This will, in turn, increase the transparency and access to services and enable better communications between clinical teams and services, ultimately improving patient experience and pathway performance. Interested suppliers are invited to complete a questionnaire that has been designed to develop an understanding of the current maturity of suppliers in the market and the ability to meet the PODAC capabilities listed below: ● Support interfaces for data exchange between the new ambulance architecture and local Shared Care Record systems and other platforms in use along the UEC pathway. ● Support innovation in referral and booking processes to allow seamless transfers of care both to hospital and to urgent community responders ● Support transformation of the UEC pathway using connected systems and business intelligence, including live clinical data sharing for transfers of care, predictive modelling and decision support tools, including AI and on scene visualisation ● Enrich the use of data in ambulance services to improve patient care, learning and improvement cycles ● Support transformation of the use of ambulance service resources to create national surge capacity and other resilience features ● Accelerate the deployment of new technologies in diagnostics, incident response, and clinical decision support Further information on these capabilities and the vision for PODAC are included in the presentation that is available via the in-tend portal. The National Commercial & Procurement Hub is conducting this market engagement on behalf of NHSX. The questionnaire and further detail on the PODAC capabilities are available via the Intend e-procurement system. Information gathered through this market engagement activity will help inform the PODAC commercial strategy and any possible future procurement process. This market engagement will not impact on participation in any procurement process. For the sake of clarity, respondents should note that their information will be held as commercial in confidence and solely used for the purpose of strategy formation. Should you wish to participate in this exercise please register through the Intend e-procurement system (https://in-tendhost.co.uk/scwcsu/aspx/Home) for further instructions. If you require any further assistance, please contact commercial.procurementhub@nhs.net. The deadline for completing the questionnaire is 17.00 on 10th December 2021. Additional information: For the avoidance of doubt, this notice is an information gathering exercise rather than a call for competition in its own right, and therefore publication or response does not commit the commissioner(s) to a future procurement, nor provide any process exemptions or preferential treatment to any parties expressing an interest. NHSX will not be liable for costs incurred by any interested party in participating in this exercise.