NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group: Consultant-Led Community Ophthalmology Service.

The overall aim of the service will be to provide a safe, flexible and efficient community-based Ophthalmology Service for patients aged 16 years and over who are registered with a GP Practice within the County of Worcestershire, UK. For clarity, other commissioned service arrangements are in place for people who are registered with a GP Practice within the County of Herefordshire, ensuring that the local health population is appropriately managed.

The proposed service is expected to operate a specialist-led model offering triage and treatment of Ophthalmology conditions that do not require treatment under the General Optometry Service criteria for Optometrists nor specialist intervention under the Hospital Eye Service. The service will also be required to accept and manage patients with stable ocular hypertension (glaucoma) following HES diagnosis and treatment, with pathways for escalation as required. Patients are expected to be referred into the service from health professionals, typically the patient's own GP, Optometrist or a secondary care consultant, where it is considered appropriate for those patients to be managed in the community. A senior clinician (MRC Ophth (part 3) and FRC Ophth (fellowship assessment) CCST) is expected to have overall responsibility for the clinical oversight of this proposed service at all times.

NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group intends to award one contract, and the proposed procurement process will fall under The Public Contracts Regulations 2015 Light Touch Regime (LTR).

The proposed contract duration is expected to be 12 months with the option to extend for a further 12-month period subject to mutual agreement. The contract is interim in nature as the Herefordshire & Worcestershire Integrated Care System works together to determine the most effective pathways for the care of patients with eye health conditions. The intention is that the provider(s) of this service will be part of the discussions and development of new and revised pathways for the Worcestershire place-based population.

The indicative budget for the service is expected to be approximately £799,000 per annum. Payments will be in accordance with local tariffs for Consultant-Led Community Ophthalmology service provision. Further details will be provided when the forthcoming tender opportunity is published. It is expected that bidding organisations will be required to demonstrate as part of the forthcoming tender evaluation criteria how they would contribute to the requirements of the 2022/2023 elective recovery planning process, particularly with respect to reducing Outpatient Follow-Up attendances and delivering more virtually.

The indicative date for contract award and initiation of service mobilisation will be published in the forthcoming procurement documentation. The 'Estimated Date of Publication of Contract Notice' detailed in II.3 of this notice is also an indicative date and NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group is not bound by any indicative dates or figures stated above.

Interested parties are advised to check for the forthcoming tender opportunity in the Find a Tender website, and in the UK Contracts Finder website, in which full details of how to submit a tender response will be provided once the opportunity is published shortly.

The Find a Tender Service website can be found at: www.find-tender.service.gov.uk ↗.

The UK Contracts Finder website can be found at: www.gov.uk/contracts-finder ↗.

In the event that NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Clinical Commissioning Group does issue a procurement tender, it does not guarantee to reproduce any information included in this Prior Information Notice.