Epic Support Services Framework Agreement

Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust (the “Trust”) is seeking to establish a non-exclusive Framework Agreement with a number of Potential Providers to provide temporary Epic design, build, operation and optimisation support service requirements. Those services will complement those to be provided by the Trust‘s core team and by Epic. A range of subsequent Further Competitions will then be run under the auspices of the Framework Agreement and lead to call-off contracts with the successful Potential Provider/s. The framework will be available for NHS-wide use. The majority of the resources required to deliver the required support services are anticipated to focus typically on roles currently delivered by a series of Band 7 EPR Application Analysts and by related technical resources, both of which are specified in the Tender documentation. They will supplement Trust resources working on any application-specific workstreams struggling to deliver to planned timescales and/or to specified quality standards. Consequently, it is impossible to predict the volume of the support services the Trust will require, for which applications, when and for how long. Many of the temporary support services requirements are likely to be urgent in nature. The key objectives of this procurement project are to:  Establish Framework Agreements with no more than 5 high-quality Potential Providers able to conclusively demonstrate their capacity and capability to satisfy the Trust’s temporary Epic support services requirements  Establish highly effective and compliant approaches to letting call-off contracts via Further Competitions that are tailored to specific requirements and circumstances and which would be let at pace within the context provided by the Framework Agreement and within the specified Further Competition rules  Begin to establish close working relationships with the Potential Providers to be successful in this procurement as part of paving the way for developing flexible approaches to providing the required services in a cost-effective manner. Should it prove to be necessary, the Trust reserves the right to amend the size and scope of the contract/s to:  Reflect any future organisational changes that might be made to the Trust (or to successor organisations) which might mean that the contract/s should ‘follow’ the Trust to an evolved, or to a different, organisational entity  Add North Manchester General Hospital to the Trust  Evolve, adapt and extend the services over time in response to the evolution of the Trust’s requirements and the potential expansion of its EPR solution over time. It is envisaged that the period of the contract will be awarded in summer 2021. The duration of contract will be 4 years. For the avoidance of doubt, the estimated contract value of £30m quoted in this Notice relates to that 4 year contract period and allows for other Trusts to utilise the framework. In parallel with the Framework Agreement procurement, the Trust may also run one or more Further Competition/s for any pressing requirements which might arise over the coming weeks. In that scenario, the Trust would share those call-off requirements with all Potential Providers to express an interest in the Framework Agreement procurement. Potential Provider responses to those call-off requirements would only be considered after the evaluation of Framework Agreement Tenders has been completed and after Framework award decisions have been taken. In practice, that scenario could mean that a call-off contract/s could be concluded very shortly after signature of Frameworks, following two parallel, but separate, evaluation processes. This notice is supported by full Tender documentation which sets out in more detail the requirements of the Trust and the background to it. The Tender documentation can be accessed, from the date of this Contract Notice, via the Proctactis procurement portal https://procontract.due-north.com/Login Potential Providers should look for ID reference number DN548856 Epic Support Services for Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust. The closing date for completion and submission of Tenders is 12:00 noon, 12th July 2021.