Outpatient Pharmacy Services · UK public procurement notice

Outpatient Pharmacy Services - Procurement approach.

The current contract is going to expire on the 31st of January 2027

The contract was awarded for 2 years to Rowlands Pharmacy LTD, for a total Value of circa £28,000,000

The Contracting Authority preferred option is to undertake a Direct Award Process C under the PSR regulations and award a new contract to the incumbent supplier but the Contracting Authority is also observing other options. So if your company is interested in delivering the services to the Contracting Authority in the long term or short term please reply to this RFI Additional information: Outline requirements

The Supplier shall:

Ensure provision of a seven day dispensing service in support of the Contracting Authority 's provision of a seven day service including A&E and Discharge as appropriate. Contracting Authority will reserve the right to renegotiate service hours under change control to meet changes in local demand. However, for the purposes of pricing, please base your tender on the current opening hours of the in-house service, which are:

Monday to Friday 08.30 - 17.00

Saturday and Sunday 08:30 - 16.00

Provide an onsite retail pharmacy service at the North Entrance with opening hours to be negotiated in keeping with the Contracting Authority 's plans for provision of seven day services.

Provide a comprehensive range of ethical health and beauty products to customers subject to the approval of the Contracting Authority (including any proposed amendment or promotions/events etc.).

The Supplier is required to source all medicines against NHS national, regional and local contracts from the Regional Drug Purchasing Centre(RDPC) The Contracting Authority will facilitate access for the Supplier to purchase medicines at NHS national, regional and local contract prices. The majority by value of Authorities' medicines are currently purchased at NHS contract prices, some direct from manufacturers, the remainder is purchased from wholesalers. Access to NHS contracts will be enacted in compliance with the NHS Commercial Medicines Unit guidelines by the Contracting Authority with all relevant suppliers

the Supplier will be required to procure all necessary medicines through the Contracting Authority 's wholesaler - the PHU Regional Drug Purchasing Centre (RDPC). This will ensure a clear audit trail of all medicines purchased through NHS contracts for the sole purpose of supplying Contracting Authority outpatients which can be verified by the Contracting Authority via an open book system.

Provide outpatient dispensing services to cover all prescriptions agreed with the Contracting Authority, fulfilling paper and/or electronic prescriptions to current and future contract volumes identified by the Contracting Authority.

Provide information, counselling, and advice to patients on medicines sold and / or supplied on prescription in order to optimise medicines adherence. This will include providing supporting written information and advice from knowledgeable and courteous staff. The Supplier should provide a statement of how they will meet these requirements, how staff will be trained and competencies updated and reviewed.

Ensure that waiting times for patients are kept to the minimum possible. The targets for such times are described in the Key Performance Indicators agreed with the Contracting Authority. These will be based on the standard set of Key Performance Indicators provided as appendix 1 to this document.

Ensure that all medicines on the Contracting Authority Formulary are available to patients and that prescriptions for non-formulary medicines will be challenged. If the supplier fails to recognise a medicine as non-formulary and dispenses it without approval by the Contracting Authority in the form of a prescription endorsement, then the Contracting Authority will withhold payment for that medicine.

Procure unlicensed medicines only from agreed suppliers specified by the Contracting Authority. Procure all other medicines as agreed with the Contracting Authority.

Contact Contracting Authority prescribers and specialist pharmacists directly when required to clarify any prescription ambiguities.

Provide health promotion and ill-health prevention services and information in line with the Contracting Authority and public health priorities (e.g. smoking cessation) and use appropriate displays and signposting.

Where required by the Contracting Authority the Supplier should provide an Outpatients Delivery Service, this being a logistics service encompassed within the Supplier's service for outpatients dispensing enabling delivery of prescribed and dispensed medicines, including but not limited to liquid formulations, items requiring refrigerated storage and chemotherapy medicines, to outpatients' places of residence, or collection of medicines dispensed at the specified location from an alternative pharmacy operated by the supplier at a location of the patient's choice.

Provide clinical screening of prescriptions for all clinical specialties required by the Contracting Authority, all medicines handled and for all patients provided to, whether through discharge dispensing, outpatient dispensing, home delivery, other dispensing or sale of over the counter medicines. The Supplier is wholly responsible for this screening and the dispensing of all medicines (except for the dispensing element of home healthcare contracts delivered by third parties).

Any specific requirements in relation to individual clinical specialties will be agreed and developed with the Supplier during the implementation and on an on-going basis, thereafter, working in partnership with Contracting Authority clinicians on a specialty-by-specialty basis.