A prior information notice has been published by NHS National Services Scotland with regards to their plan to procure an online triage solution and a digital platform capable of optimising theatre capacity and increasing theatre productivity.
With regards to the first, the notice states that NHS Scotland is “exploring a requirement for the procurement of a digital platform solution to provide a digital pre-operative assessment tool.”
The tool must be capable of supporting a national pre-operative assessment online triage solution for all participating boards in NHS Scotland. It must allow patients to complete a remote pre-operative assessment questionnaire and receive support relating to their planned procedure at designated intervals, along with directing them to the most appropriate clinician or service. From the clinician perspective, the solution must provide the ability to triage and prioritise requests.
“Secondly, a digital platform solution is required that can improve and maximise waiting list creation that can make the planning, changing and optimisation of theatres scheduling more efficient, ensuring this helps to reduce clinical and administrative time necessary to manage lists,” the notice states.
It adds that the solution must be capable of full integration with the current electronic patient record systems. It must have the ability to accurately record cumulative procedure times along with analysing the time for specific patients in terms of clinical urgency, and the overall length of time the patient has waited.
Once procured, the standardised digital platform is to “bring benefits to patients and staff across 381 theatres within the 14 territorial health boards, one national health board and 2,000 surgical Ccnsultants across 40-50 theatre specialties in NHS Scotland.”
As part of the prior information notice, NHS Scotland has stated that they wish to engage with interested suppliers in the marketplace, and have provided two questionnaires for the two solutions here.
The contract notice is estimated to be published in July this year.
