PRJ1196 - Lewisham Care Home GP Contract

NHS South East London (SEL) Integrated Care Board (ICB) (hereafter referred to as the “The ICB”), under delegated commissioning on behalf of NHS England (hereafter referred to as “the Authority”) invites Healthcare providers to submit Expressions of Interest (EOI) and completed Invitation to Tender (ITT) submissions from all suitable providers for the delivery of GP Primary Medical Services and additional services under Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) Contracts delivered directly to nursing home residents, residential care home residents and extra care housing tenants across the Lewisham Borough.

Background of the service:
There are currently 15 Older Peoples Care Homes within the London Borough of Lewisham with 599 beds. There are also 5 Extra Care Housing facilities that have 161 Beds. These Homes have been supported by Primary Care through the following means:
• Core GP services through registration at local GP Practices
• An Enhanced Primary Care Support to Care Homes contract, currently held by the Lewisham GP Federation
• The 2020/2021 PCN Network DES additionally introduced new support for Care Homes from PCNs

Some of the service requirements published in the PCN Network DES duplicated the requirements in the local contract. As a result, a revised specification has been developed to remove this duplication and update the service model to reflect the new Enhanced Health in Care Homes Framework, working through a single contract and provider.

This new APMS primary care contract will provide core General Medical Services together with an enhanced service specification of medical support for nursing home residents, residential care home residents and extra care housing tenants.

In addition, the contract is expected to provide an advice and support service that will include residents and staff of mental health and learning disability residential homes within the borough – this will be scoped and co-developed by the provider working in collaboration with key local stakeholders and service users.

Contract Length and value:
The contract will have an initial term of 5 years (60 months), followed by an optional extension of 5 years (60 months) plus 5 years (60 months) at the discretion of the commissioner. If all available extension is taken up in full the contract will have a maximum duration of 15 years (180 months).
The indicative annual contract value for this service is £559,240 per annum.
Over the 15 years, if contract is extended to its full duration, the total indicative maximum contract value will be £8,388,600.

The indicated contract value shown is dependent on the number of patient registrations and the maximum bed capacity/occupancy. The values shown are based on maximum patient registration and maximum bed occupancy.
A breakdown of the indicated contract value can be found in attachment section.

The Desired Provider
The desired services must be GP led and provided by GPs, nurses and other clinical professionals and a provider must:
- Be registered to provide General Practitioner Services.
- Provide the APMS described within the standard NHS England and NHS Improvement APMS contract.
- Provide primary care medical services which will be accessible, convenient, responsive, high quality and patient centred.
- Primary GP services, delivered in a safe and effective manner.
- Effectively mobilise services to become operational in the prescribed timeframe.
- Deliver all services throughout the hours that will be outlined as per the APMS standard contract.
- Design services around the needs of patients and carers, ensuring they are offered more choice and a greater say in their treatment.
- Be an active part of one of the 6 Primary Care Networks that exist within Lewisham.

The enhanced service is designed to take a multi-disciplinary approach to proactive case management, support prescribing priorities and deliver both routine and urgent care 'in-hours'.
This model:
1. Enables all patients to be registered with the same Practice, unifying clinical responsibility and core service provision;
2. Has a newly revised and detailed service specification
3. Has responsibility for delivery of the EHCH PCN DES specification for CQC registered Older Peoples Care Homes and Extra Support Care Provision.
4. is the most effective and supportive way of delivering care to this specific targeted cohort of patients.

The Procurement is being managed by the NHS London Commercial Hub (NHS LCH) hosted by NEL ICB, on behalf of the Authority, in connection with a competitive Invitation to Tender (ITT) exercise that is being conducted via a process, based in part on the open procedure under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 (“the Regulations” (as amended)).

The Service falls within the scope of the Light Touch Regime (LTR) – Section 7 (Reg 74-76) of the Regulations governing procurement of Health, Social and related services listed under Schedule 3 of the Regulations. None of the references to “Open procedure”, “ITT”, the use of the term “tender process”, or any other indication shall be taken to mean that the Authority intends to hold itself bound to any of the Regulations, save those applicable to LTR provisions.

Bidders are also to note that information relating to this procurement is provided in good faith, and may be subject to amendment by The Authority.