ICB battling legal challenge over patient transport contracts

Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board had split its tender into two lots when it launched the procurement in March.

The first lot sought to procure a haemodialysis car service for five years with the option to extend for two more at the cost of £5.6m. Lot two offered another potentially seven-year contract, this time for non-emergency patient transport services, worth £36.7m.

Healthcare and specialist transport provider EMED was placed second by the ICB for lot one and third for lot two when the bids were assessed by the ICB. TechXI won lot one, and Savoy Ventures lot two.

In response, EMED launched a legal challenge in the High Court alleging the ICB broke procurement rules as it “failed to create or retain lawful, sufficient contemporaneous records of the reasons for the scores awarded”.

EMED also stated the ICB had incorrectly scored its bid for both lots, giving it too low a final total and meaning it lost out by small margins to the winning bidders. It added that the ICB had “failed to apply the published selection criteria to the preferred bidder’s response”.

In relation to lot one, EMED said the ICB did this by awarding the contract to a company that was not registered with the Care Quality Commission despite the tender documents saying this was a requirement.

The ICB has admitted it made a mistake in the tender documents for this lot, erroneously stating the supplier needed to be registered with the CQC, and is in the process of re-running the tender for lot one as a result.

A spokesperson told HSJ the decision to retender the lot “was not related to any of the allegations made by the claimant”.

The ICB maintains the tender for lot two was conducted in compliance with the procurement regulations. It has denied it scored the bids incorrectly and failed to maintain sufficient contemporaneous records.

The judge has granted the ICB permission to continue with awarding the contract for the second lot to its preferred supplier while the legal challenge is heard in court.

The ICB said the decision to re-tender the first lot meant the claim from EMED Group was academic and no longer actionable. However, the losing bidder has countered that the decision did not “extinguish [its] accrued cause of action” and added that the reasons for abandoning the award advanced in the ICB’s defence “are not the true reasons”.

EMED Group declined to comment.