Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) Services - Watford General Hospital

The West Hertfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust (Trust) and NHS Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) are inviting expressions of interest and competitive tenders from suitably experienced and capable providers, to develop a new Urgent Treatment Centre (UTC) Service to be co-located with the Emergency Department of the Watford General Hospital.

This is an immediate opportunity to become a sub-contracted partner to the Trust, to bring primary care clinical capacity with a specialist focus on streaming and managing the urgent conditions normally presenting at the Emergency Department, as well as referrals from 111.

The service model developed between the Trust and the CCG will bring a working partnership involving a clinical workforce part provided by the Trust and part provided by the successfully appointed UTC provider following the conclusion of this procurement process.

There is potential for the contracted service to be expanded in scope and financial value (although not guaranteed) to include: early winter provision to support ED in winter 2019/20; Paediatric streaming and initial assessment; activity growth exceeding the base case assumptions, including both annual growth and percentage of total activity treated within the UTC; employment of some or all staff currently provided by the Trust; and sub-contracting the delivery of Hemel UTC and St Albans MIU/UTC.

The initial contract term is for 4 years and 3 months, from April 2020 until June 2024, but having rights reserved to terminate a year earlier.

The contract may be extended for up to a total of 8 years and 3 months until June 2028.

Expected contract value is circa £2m per year to deliver core service activity, worth £8.7m across 4 years and 3 months, or if extended in duration up to £16.3m over 8 years 3 months.

If the contracted scope of service were to be expanded as above, the potential contract value could be up to £76m across 8 years 2 months.

Very specific qualifying criteria apply to Bidders, ensuring specific capable experience in the provision of Integrated Urgent Treatment Centre Services and experience and capability in successfully recruiting and retaining a GP workforce.

Bidders will need to demonstrate achievement of sufficient CQC ratings and achievement of minimum performance against national A&E 4-hour standard in the delivery of UTC services.

Full details described within the Qualification Questionnaire.

This procurement is being run as a bespoke competitive procurement involving a number of steps fully described within the procurement documents.

Early submission of the Qualification Questionnaires and supporting Financial Assessment Templates are required, prior to submission of all other bid response documents.

Full details provided within the Procurement Documents.