Patient Transport Contracts and Tenders

Search live notices on Stotles, or track an NHS trust's existing patient transport contract for its retender date: awards in this corpus commonly run multi-year, so a large trust's next tender is visible well in advance. Several recent awards combine two or three trusts or integrated care boards into one contract, so a single notice can cover more ground than its title suggests.

Non-emergency patient transport services (NEPTS): planned journeys to and from appointments, discharges, and renal, bariatric, mental health and secure transport, usually run by or on behalf of NHS trusts and integrated care boards. Blue-light emergency ambulance response is a separate service and is not the focus of this page, though some notices in the corpus cover both under one contract.

The two most common are 85143000 (Ambulance services), which appears alongside this filter on 264 notices, and 60130000 (Special-purpose road passenger-transport services), on 185. Buyers use whichever code fits how the contract is framed: a healthcare service or a transport service.

NHS trusts, integrated care boards and NHS Shared Business Services acting on their behalf run the large majority of this work, with contracts often covering a single trust, several neighbouring trusts, or an entire region. Health and Social Care Northern Ireland's Business Services Organisation runs equivalent procurement for Northern Ireland.

Both patterns show up. Some trusts let a single contract covering all patient transport needs; others split into lots by type of journey, such as core, renal and secure transport, or by geography across several boroughs. Recent large awards include Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust's multi-trust contract split into core, renal and secure lots, and a regional award covering Lancashire and part of Cumbria.