Invitation to tender for the provision of Emergency and Urgent Care Private Ambulance Services

The South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust ("SCAS" & "the Head Provider") is issuing this invitation to tender ("ITT") in connection with the competitive procurement of Emergency and Urgent Care Private Ambulances.

SCAS provides a range of emergency, urgent care and non-emergency healthcare services, along with commercial logistics services. The Trust delivers most of these services to the populations of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire as well as non-emergency patient transport services in Surrey and Sussex. The Non-emergency Patient Transport Service is out of scope for this work.

SCAS' 999 Emergency Service operates around the clock and serves a population of more than four million people across Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire and Oxfordshire. Following the strategic review of existing Private Provider (PP) 999 services, the Trust has decided to develop longer term strategic partnerships to meet its continuing requirements for PP 999 services over the next 5 years.

SCAS is seeking the provision of a range of A&E Private Ambulance Services ("the Services").

The tender comprises two categories of contracts:

3 core Regional Lots of c2,000 hours per week in each lot. Regional Lot contracts will be let for 5 years with an option to extend by two further periods of 1 year without re-competition. Based on current demand estimates the territories for each Regional Lot will be:

Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire

East Berkshire and South Buckinghamshire

Hampshire

A "Capacity Fill" Lot to supplement the core Lots. The Capacity Fill Lot will have multiple contracts which will normally be let for a period of 1 year (initial contracts may be let for 6 months to align end dates with Head Provider Financial Year). Based on current demand estimates, the total requirement for these will be around 3,000 hours per week.

The Head Provider is seeking bids from those organisations that can evidence the capacity to mobilize to meet the requirements for the Lots they bid for.