NHS England launches £300m tender for new Digital Pathways Framework

NHS England has launched an open procurement contract worth almost £300 million to establish a framework agreement for the provision of Digital Pathways solutions and associated capabilities for primary care IT.

The contract notice, published on 18 October, puts the estimated value of the procurement at £297,600,060 excluding VAT. It will begin on 24 January 2024 and last for four years before ending on 24 January 2028.

The scope of the Digital Pathways services and systems, the notice states, covers the following capabilities and services:

• Care Navigation – supporting the ability to get patients the right support at the right time to help manage a range of needs.
• Online Consultations and Online Patient/Service User Request Reporting – supporting the provision of data collection, reporting and display (‘dashboard’).
• Online Patient/Service User Request – supporting the ability to raise and respond to administrative requests from patients (or their representative) or a service user.
• Online Patient/Service User Consultation – supporting the interaction between a patient (or their representative) and a service user, including requests for support, capturing information on behalf of a patient and verifying their details.
• Cross-Organisational – Appointment Booking  – enabling appointments for patients and service users to be booked by health/care professionals across organisational boundaries.
• Prescription Ordering – Citizen – enables patients to request for a repeat medication (recorded in the ‘Prescribing’ capability) to be issued online.
• Video Consultation – enables health or care professionals to conduct secure live remote video consultations with individual or groups of patients/service users, ensuring they can receive support relating to healthcare concerns when a video consultation is most appropriate.
• View Record – Citizen – enables citizens to view content from their EPR online (to integrate with ‘Patient Information Maintenance – GP Solution’ capability).
• Communication Management – supports the delivery of communications to recipients.

The contract is subject to renewal, with an initial term of 12 months and a potential extension for 36 months.

Price is not the only award criterion for the contract with suitable economic and financial standing and technical and professional ability also required.

The deadline for the receipt of tenders or requests to participate is 16 November 2023. The tenderer must maintain the tender for a duration of at least six months from the date stated for receipt of tender.

This NHSE tender comes after NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) issued a Prior Information Notice (PIN) in August signalling its intention to start negotiating with suppliers on a Framework Agreement for the provision of Digital Workplace Solutions.

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