NHS Shared Business Services has published an open opportunity, seeking suppliers to join a framework to provide digital workplace solutions across the NHS and other public sector organisations.
It aims to cover off-the-shelf software licensing, bespoke software development, infrastructure equipment supply, and infrastructure support, maintenance, and management services. The framework is to be awarded to a maximum of 30 bidders, providing a route to manage procurement administration centrally, with an aim to reduce the costs of procurement for trusts and ICBs.
The opportunity highlights the need for suppliers to demonstrate “maximum value for money”, sustainability and social value, stating that there will be “significant weight” given to these elements of any applications during the decision-making process.
The framework has a closing date for applications of 7 November 2024 at 12pm.
To learn more about the opportunity, please click here.
Opportunities from across the NHS and beyond
September has brought news of several procurements in the works from across the NHS and beyond, with two of the biggest coming from Digital Health and Care Wales, with a £2 million contract notice for a network as a service (NaaS) solution and an announcement of plans to procure a new commercial, off-the-shelf digital maternity solution for NHS Wales with an estimated value of £8.8 million.
In the South West, an early engagement notice for the region’s digital neighbourhoods programme was published, seeking to carry out an “evaluation piece”, asking interested suppliers to complete a questionnaire to help “inform the specification for any potential future opportunity”. The aim of the market engagement exercise is to support the NHS England South West region understand the potential outcomes to improve digital usage within the region, support the development of a procurement strategy, and seek informed information and evidence to help understand the capability and capacity of the market to deliver the service as required.
In North London, North London Mental Health Partnership (NLMHP) shared plans to procure a digital local risk management and incident reporting system, with interested suppliers requested to complete a questionnaire by 18 September. Through the questionnaire, NLMHP will assess capability, capacity and experience of potential suppliers using pass/fail criteria, with successful suppliers to be invited to participate in the second stage of the procurement with full tenders to be submitted.
More procurement news from NHS Shared Business Services
In July, a prior information notice was shared by NHS SBS for the procurement of cyber security services. The notice shared how NHS SBS plans to put a framework agreement in place for the provision of cyber security services along with related goods and services, including cyber security consultancy; managed solutions; tools; hardware; and medical/healthcare-specific solutions; and an all inclusive cyber security combined solutions lot.
Last month, NHS Shared Business Services announced that it had developed a framework agreement focusing on insourcing of clinical services, designed to offer a “compliant route” for NHS trusts to source and procure services at their own site.
