NHS England Gender Identity Services for Adults

This notice is placed as a Prior Information Notice and relates only to a pre-procurement market engagement event. NHS England (National) (the Commissioners) invites suitably qualified providers to attend a Market Engagement Event to discuss the future commissioning and procurement of Gender Identity Services for Adults across the population of England (Surgical and Non-Surgical) and Scotland.

(Surgical only). The potential lotting of any contract(s) both by services and geography is under discussion and attendees will be asked to indicate geographies they can serve and services they can deliver.

Note - These are not pre-qualification questions but rather to inform any lotting strategy. NHS England (National) Specialised Commissioning will be the contracting and commissioning authority for Gender Identity Services.

Specialised gender identity services provide assessment, care and treatment for people with gender incongruence with their birth-assigned sex who experience gender dysphoria symptoms that require intervention. Commissioners are looking for providers to deliver a high quality service within NHS England (Surgical and Non Surgical Services) and NHS Scotland (Surgical).

It is envisaged that the tender documentation for the procurement of these services will be available from January 2018. A separate advert will be published to alert interested parties when the tender documentation is available.

Additional information: The Market Engagement Event will be held on 6th September 2017 between 11:15 and 13:15 at: Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre, 108 Stamford Street, London, SE1 9NH. The event is open to providers and potential future providers of Gender Identity Services for Adults.

Commissioners will give a presentation on the draft specifications for delivery of Gender Identity Services for Adults, both surgical and non-surgical and potential procurement routes and timescales. Providers will then be invited to feedback and input through individual or group sessions. .Draft specifications are available at https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/survey/gender-identity-... Attendance is limited to two persons per organisation.

Please ensure that the title of the email contains reference: PR002114 Lisa Chivers. In the event you are unable to attend but would like to receive a copy of any presentation materials, please send an email to scwcsu.procurement@nhs.net and copies will be sent to you.

This notice is an information gathering exercise rather than a call for competition in its own right, and therefore publication or response does not commit NHS England or respondents to a future procurement, nor provide any process exemptions or preferential treatment to any parties expressing an interest. NHS England will not be liable for costs incurred by any interested party in participating in this exercise.

The Services are healthcare services within the meaning and scope of Annex XIV of Directive 2014/24/EU ("the Directive") and Schedule3to the Public Contract Regulations 2015 ("the Regulations"), which are not subject to the full regime of the Regulations, but is instead governed by the "Light Touch Regime", (Articles 74 to 76 of the Directive, and Regulations 74 to 76 of the Regulations). For the avoidance of doubt, the Authority will not be bound by the Regulations or the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union or any other regulations or legislation except for the specific parts or circumstances that apply to the procurement of these Services.

Any procurement conducted as a result of this event will be advertised separately and all organisations wanting to participate will need to respond to the procurement advertisement as and when it is published. Providers who do not attend this Market Engagement Event will still be able to apply for the Procurement in the future. Please note that this Market Engagement Event does not represent a formal stage in the procurement process and attendance will play no part in any subsequent evaluation process.