Consultant Led Community Based Anticoagulation Service

The overall aim of this service is to improve patient access to anticoagulation; including discussions about the most appropriate choice of anticoagulant and then if the choice is warfarin, initiation and monitoring. This service must be close to home, and a more convenient service for patients with increased local capacity to meet the demand for treatment with anticoagulants. The intention is to provide a comprehensive, community based, consultant led service for patients needing anticoagulation. The service must be delivered to all appropriate patients registered with GP practices in NHS City and Hackney CCG and ensure equitable access and quality of service to the entire population group. Service locations will need to be agreed with the CCG using existing assets to good effect and should minimise travel for patients.

Service Thresholds:
• The service provider will be expected to deliver services to 1359 patients in the first year, 1413 in the second year and 1470 in the third year
• The priority for mobilisation will be to take patients out of secondary care into the community. The service provider will be expected to increase the number of patients having warfarin managed in the community from existing 623, and add in approximately 90% of the hospital cohort i.e.1285 by the end of Q3 The service provider will be expected to deliver support for self-testing patients up to 20 patients in the first year, 30 in the second year and 40 in the third year
• The service provider participates in a nationally recognised scheme for External Quality Assurance (EQA) and EQA is undertaken at all service delivery sites at the frequency specified by the scheme.

The contract will be for a duration of 3 years with the option to extend for a further two years in 2 x 12-month instalments. The contract value will be up to £2.003m over three years.

Service Exclusions:
• Patients registered with a GP outside of City and Hackney CCG
• Known hypersensitivity to warfarin or to any of the excipients
• Initiation of warfarin for all indications other than non-valvular AF (patients will be expected to be transferred to the community warfarin service when two successive INR results are within target therapeutic range)
Patients prescribed Acenocoumarol or Low Molecular Weight Heparin
The service must embrace a person-centred approach to the care of patients and must work as a partner alongside all other health and social care professionals involved in the patient’s care so that patients experience co-ordinated, seamless and integrated services.
The service will also be expected to foster continued quality improvement and to demonstrate a commitment to ongoing review of safety and quality monitoring information about service provision. Additionally the provider will be required to have robust systems for acting on the results of safety and quality monitoring information, including more formal measures to improve provider performance if safety or quality indicators for the service remain persistently below expected standards.


The CCG is following a Light Touch Regime procurement using the steps for an Open Procedure procurement process to secure this service. Interested organisations must express their interest by registering on Pro-contract: https://www.supplying2nhs.com and submit a tender by no later than 30th September 2016.

Invitation to Tender will be issued on 15th August 2016 to all bidders who have expressed an interest by the above deadline via the Pro-Contract e-procurement system https://www.supplying2nhs.com. Please refer to the attached MOI for further details.

Upon receipt of the Invitation to Tender, suppliers should login and complete the tender response documentation electronically and submit them via the Pro-contract e-tendering portal. The deadline for tender submission is 1200hrs on 30th September 2016. Any submission received after the above deadline may not be considered.

Please note that any communication from NEL Commissioning Support Unit or City & Hackney CCG regarding this tender will be via Pro-contract discussion board. Bidders must use Pro-contract discussion board for their communications with NEL Commissioning Support or CCG regarding this procurement.

Please note that the Contracting Authority has published a contract notice on the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) Ref: 2016-OJS156-282662-en which contains more information.