NHS 111 procurement abandoned in West Midlands

Sandwell and West Birmingham CCG, the lead commissioner, said it did not receive a bid that was “acceptable and demonstrated value for money” and has ended the procurement process.

The only bid came from West Midlands Ambulance Service Trust, which currently provides the service and will continue to do so until the contract is re-procured in the autumn.

A trust spokesman said it was “disappointed” to have missed out on the contract “as we have consistently been one of the highest performing 111 providers in the country each week, for many months”.

He added: “Since we ‘stepped in’ to take over the service from NHS Direct, we have invested heavily in the service providing additional training to staff and increasing the number of clinicians, which has resulted in significant reductions in the number of patients being sent to [accident and emergency] or requiring an ambulance. The feedback from patients shows the service has very high satisfaction levels.”

The contract was to run the service for four years and to go live in September.

HSJ previously reported that the CCGs expected the re-procurement to cost £300,000-£500,000.

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The groups plan to bring the re-procurement in line with the work emerging from NHS England’s urgent and emergency care review and include “stronger integration with in and out of hours GP services”. Extra care will also be provided for patients with mental health conditions and more specialist clinical input at call centres. A spokeswoman for Sandwell and West Birmingham said the bid received was “significantly out of range” of the CCGs’ “affordability criteria”.

The contract value was advertised as £45m-£130m in the Official Journal of the European Union.

Jonathan Leach, Sandwell and West Birmingham’s clinical director for NHS 111, said: “As commissioners, we ran an incredibly detailed and robust evaluation process. This saw commissioners, clinicians and patients working together. Across the West Midlands NHS 111 forms an integral part of the local health economy.

“There are future plans to further develop the 111 service, integrating with in and out of hours GP services to provide patients with seamless 24/7 access to care and providing additional care for patients with mental health conditions, plus providing more clinical input at the call centres. All of this work is currently in its initial stages and we hope to be in a position to incorporate the revised specification by the early autumn when we will commence a new procurement process.”