NHS England re-opens HSSF to LHCR and population health suppliers

NHS England and Improvement has re-opened the Health Systems Support Framework (HSSF) to enable suppliers to bid to provide services aimed at local health and care records and population health initiatives.

The update to the framework, published in October, includes a separate lot for suppliers of technology that fall within a new set of services targeting the NHS market.

This includes specialist solutions that facilitate the digitisation of services and the use of data to drive proactive population heath management approaches across Primary Care Networks (PCNs) and integrated provider teams.

NHS England and Improvement has said HSSF will be refreshed regularly “to ensure it stays current and includes the latest innovative products, services and suppliers.”

NHS England and Improvement is now accepting bids across the following service areas:

• Local Health and Care Records
• Informatics, analytics and digital tools for population health, business and clinical intelligence
• Tools and applications that support direct patient care
• Transformation and change
• Patient empowerment and activation
• System optimisation

The deadline for bids relating to the current refresh is 12 noon, 6 January 2020.

HSSF was initially established in August 2018 as procurement framework set up to give health systems quick and easy access to the market for services that enable them to deliver more integrated care, based around the application of key standards.

By bringing suppliers onto a national framework agreement, HSSF aims to support the implementation of key national policies and programmes viewed as critical to delivery of the Five Year Forward View and the Long Term Plan.

A tender notice detailed that NHS England is looking to re-procure some of the services within the Health Systems Support Framework to allow for updates to its scope and to give new suppliers an opportunity to bid.

Three core capabilities of population health management are being targeted.

This includes infrastructure that encompasses electronic patient records and place-based digitalisation, shared care records and cyber security; population health analytics and digital tools for system modelling, planning and research; and impact and intervention, patient empowerment and system optimisation, including demand management and capacity planning, system assurance and medicines management.

A similar initiative is underway in NHS primary care, where a new, £484 million general practice IT framework has been opened with a view to diversifying the GP IT marketplace and bring new system capabilities to the UK primary care market.