Community Echocardiography Service

Community Echocardiography Service for Warwickshire North Clinical Commissioning Group. NHS Arden & Greater East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit (AG CSU) is conducting this procurement exercise on behalf of Warwickshire North Clinical Commissioning Group (WNCCG), to seek suitably qualified and experienced providers to deliver the ‘Community Echocardiography Service.

The service is likely to be commissioned for a period of 3 years with an option to extend for up to 24 months. A Pre-Information Notice – Community Echocardiography Service was previously advertised on Contracts Finder relating to this procurement ref: WNCCG/ECG/W&W01/EOI Service Overview: The service will undertake echocardiograms for Adults aged 16 years and over with suspected or known heart abnormality as assessed by their authorised GP referrer.

This service will: • Provide a high quality, cost effective, local community Adult Echocardiography service for the population within North Warwickshire, Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council areas. • Comply with accepted best practice in line with national and local guidance, relevant accreditations processes, relevant guidelines in clinical practice and robust governance arrangements. • Complement the existing NHS-run facilities at George Eliot Hospital, University Hospitals of Coventry and Warwick (UHCW) and Burton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and work as part of an overall pathway of care for the patient that is integral to that of the local health economy. • Indicative annual activity for the current direct access service is 700 scans. Aims of the Service: To provide a community based service that will provide care closer to home for patients, increase capacity, decrease waiting times and effectively support the management within primary care for those patients who do not need further input from a Cardiologist.

Furthermore this will link echocardiography services in primary care with secondary care so that, where appropriate and necessary, individual patients can move seamlessly between providers without bureaucracy or delay and avoiding the need for duplicate tests. The service will be commissioned via an open procurement process.

The Invitation to Tender (ITT) will be live on the 14th of December 2015 on the Arden GEM CSU e-tendering portal (Bravo). All submissions will be evaluated using the scoring criteria which are contained within the ITT instructions – Document 1.

Clarifications may be asked during the procurement process, the deadline for ITT clarification questions is 5th January 2016 at 5pm. The deadline for responses to the ITT is the 12th January 2016 at 5pm.

All correspondence relating to this procurement throughout all stages of the process must be managed through the Arden & GEM CSU eTendering Procurement Portal, Bravo only. Please see attachment for Instructions for bidders that wish to respond to the ITT.