NEL Healthcare Consulting Resource Management System

<p>NHS Commissioning Board (on behalf of NEL CSU) (NEL hereafter referred to as &ldquo;the Authority&rdquo;) is seeking to commission a software system capable of managing the allocation of consultant staff time to individual projects which are being delivered to our clients in exchange for a fee.</p>
<p><strong>Background </strong></p>
<p>NHC currently employs around 220 consultant staff, although this number could increase. In a year the NHC has up to 400 projects of which around 70 are live or in the pipeline at any given time. The primary need is for a system that: &bull; Maintains a record of the projects that are currently live or in pipeline &bull; Maintains a record of the staff, their skills and availability &bull; Shows the resource requirements of each project and how staff have been allocated &bull; Shows the income that each project is likely to earn &bull; Highlights projects that running behind or ahead of their planned resource consumption &bull; At the end of the project the system indicates the amount that should be charged to the client. Most projects are sold on a time and materials basis, so the value of the contract quoted and the final amount charged are dependent upon the time that consultants record against each project. However some projects (and occasionally part of a contract) can be sold on a fixed price and the system will need to be flexible enough to cope with this. It is common for projects to be extended with the extension recorded as a new project but &ldquo;linked&rdquo; to the parent in such a way that it easy to consolidate information to see the whole project. Another common occurrence is for some projects to be created as sub-projects of a larger &ldquo;call-off&rdquo; contract. The system should be able to produce a range of management reports showing: &bull; The availability of consultants currently and into the future &bull; The resource requirements of projects both met and un-met &bull; The performance of individual projects comparing planned resources with actual &bull; Timesheet information about each individual The CSU operates a financial year from April to March. The system should be able to report on activity within the financial year and by calendar month. The CSU operates a number of reporting systems for the whole organisation which NHC must contribute data to such as an income database (that feeds the ledger) and a workforce system. This system will need to be able to mirror many of the fields in these systems to ease the transfer information across. This system will replace one currently commissioned from CMAP, where the three-year contract is coming to an end. As the contract ends mid-way through a financial year it is vital that there is no disruption to normal business. We would expect the bidder to indicate how legacy data from CMAP can be migrated into the new system.</p>