Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement

Bid support and review

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement

Challenge: Following a merger our charity client wished to expand Increasing Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) services, aware that its bid preparation capability required enhancement.

The client needed to improve awareness of the commissioning and procurement landscape within which it would be operating.

Solution: Provision of a bespoke bid review process to ensure that the quality of bids truly reflected the full potential of the organisation to deliver required services.

With a 48 hour turnaround bids were quality checked to ensure that the specification was reflected in the response and that the questions posed in the procurement documentation were fully answered.  Consistency of style and content was considered and differences identified.  Areas of weakness were similarly identified and suggested improvements made.  The compliance of the response to the mandated format was validated and errors flagged.

We held a half day workshop including a national expert to inform key client personnel on the NHS commissioning environment, and the advantages, challenges and pitfalls in procurement using Any Qualified Provider (AQP).

Outcome:

A comprehensive list of lessons learnt fed through to training and validation material together with a list of opportunities for the organisation to increase its impact on NHS services.

An outline plan of next steps set the client on a trajectory to further develop its existing networks and exploit its knowledge to expand services.

 

 

Procurement strategy

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement

Challenge: Our client requested advice and guidance on how to proceed with re-procurement of a service beset with performance issues in the first 12 months of operation.

Our review revealed a flawed procurement with many issues arising from the original exercise that had occurred at the transition from PCTs to CCGs.

Solution: Our recommendation focused on supporting the management of the existing contract to improve performance and remedy operational issues; reviewing the options available to both parties and the most effective way of aligning ambitions for a contract re-procurement; designing the re-procurement to eliminate the errors and flaws in the initial process and ensure that the specification and KPIs supported the vision of commissioners.

Having established that the optimum time, taking due account of the lead time and risk to commissioners, was at the contract expiry, we were asked to prepare the Project Initiation Document (PID) for the procurement.

Breaking the task of specification development into five work streams we identified milestones and deliverables that we were able to set in a framework of gateways.  We undertook analysis of the key problem areas to facilitate the development of a client led specification.

Outcome: An approved PID, identifying project governance structures, goals, aims, deliverables, key performance indicators, project plan, resources, risks and mitigations, and finances.

MTEP evaluation

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement

Challenge: As part of its horizon scanning process our client wanted to identify what new technologies to recommend to commissioners and asked us to review the NICE’s Medical Technology Evaluation Programme guidance.

Solution: We prepared a précis of each medical technologies guidance which detailing whether the technology was recommended for adoption by NICE, whether it was applicable to secondary, community or primary care, and to which medical area / speciality it was relevant.

Outcome: Our report informed the “What to Change” element of Commissioning for Value and drew on evidential data and informed Deep Dive Service reviews.   The précis could be used by commissioners and clinicians as part of the engagement process and to inform the Case for Change.

Interim Management

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement, Interim Management

Challenge: Our client had suffered a staff retention problem within its contract management team during a period of upheaval in the local health economy.
Loss of key staff put the organisation at risk in a period of contract renewal with major acute hospitals and the community services provider.

Solution: Park Street Consulting provided a contract manager to support the performance and contract management process for the acute contracts; and later also provided  a head of contracting to lead the team during a challenging period financially.

The operational dynamics of the team were reshaped to maximise effectiveness, reporting tools were developed to identify areas of concern and inconsistency.  The commissioner-provider split for community services was managed, shaping the contract management meetings to impact on the recovery programme.

The contract for an ISTC diagnostic centre was reviewed, resolving legacy issues and driving up performance to fully utilise capacity.

Outcome: The team were able to exit having provided the necessary control and grip on contracts; created contract databases to identify milestones and schedule resource accordingly; and recruited to fill substantive posts.

Bid support and review

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement

Challenge: Following a merger our client wished to expand IAPT services, aware that its bid preparation capability required enhancement.
The client needed to improve awareness of the commissioning and procurement landscape within which it would be operating.

Solution: Park Street Consulting provided a bespoke bid review process to ensure that the quality of bids truly reflected the full potential of the organisation to deliver required services.

With a 48 hour turnaround bids were quality checked to ensure that the specification was reflected in the response and that the questions posed in the procurement documentation were fully answered.  Consistency of style and content was considered and differences identified.  Areas of weakness were similarly identified and suggested improvements made.  The compliance of the response to the mandated format was validated and errors flagged.

A half day workshop was held to inform key client personnel on the commissioning environment, the challenges and pitfalls in procurement using AQP.

Outcome: A comprehensive list of lessons learnt fed through to training and validation material together with a list of opportunities for the organisation to increase its impact on NHS services.
An outline plan of next steps set the client on a trajectory to further develop its existing networks and exploit its knowledge to expand services.

 

Contract management

Commissioning, Contracting & Procurement

Challenge: Support and management of the contract renewal process for a community services provider.

Solution: This included:

  • developing contracts for service transfer due to organisational change;
  • creating new contracts for services that result from successful tenders;
  • reviewing and revising services to and from partners in the local health economy ensuring financial viability;
  • presenting the case for increased funding to cover increases in demographics;
  • managing the impact of changes to commissioning of specialist services;
  • developing and agreeing CQUIN schemes;

Across all contract negotiations analysis of the available resources and manpower planning features strongly despite efforts to shift towards outcome based measures.

Driven by tight funding within the local health economy there is need to optimise use of community beds.  We developed a simple RAG monitoring tool that allows instant capacity calculations of bed usage based on patient category and staffing.

Outcome: Contracts in place and agreed within mandated timelines.  Successful negotiation of contract uplifts.  Creation of CQUIN schemes to meet commissioner goals; incentivising positive performance; straightforward metrics, measurable against established benchmarks.

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