NHS England has published a contract notice with an estimated total value of £13.3 million for an “experienced, multi-skilled, rapid response intervention service also known as a Tiger Teams service” to support EPR delivery across England.
The service is said to be an expansion to an existing support offer available to providers, that aims to support increased quality of EPR delivery and to reduce the risk of “poor EPR deployment”.
The notice cites challenges for trusts around accessing skilled short-term resources to support EPR delivery, and looks to the provision of “Tiger Teams” of specialists commissioned to deliver a “time-boxed service on behalf of the trust where other attempts to fulfil the requirement have been unsuccessful”. In particular, it highlights that the frontline digitisation programme does not include the resources to provide targeted, hands-on support of this kind, and that an additional service is required to ensure overall success.
Services should also be able to demonstrate “organisational working knowledge of best practice” relating to EPR design, delivery and optimisation, as well as to provide knowledge transfer within the NHS, through a “buddying-style” approach or similar to create a more sustainable resourcing model, along with the potential to create a virtual centre of expertise by building up a cohort of operators with specialist knowledge.
Tenders should be received by the 20 November, with a proposed start date of 1 April 2025 and end date of 31 March 2026. The notice also outlines the potential for twelve months in extension periods to this original contract duration.
To read the contract notice in full, or to learn more about submitting a tender, please click here.
Developing and empowering a digitally-skilled workforce
For a HTN Now panel discussion last month, we were joined by a panel of experts to talk about digital trusts, focusing on what good looks like from a tech perspective, the best ways of fostering a culture of innovation, building great digital teams, and more.
Another HTN Now event from earlier in the year also focused on strategies for empowering a digital workforce, and how to develop workforce technology literacy through scalable and effective digital learning and support programmes.
Strategies from across the NHS have also pointed to the importance of developing a digitally confident and empowered workforce, with the latest IT strategy from Leeds Teaching Hospitals emphasising the need for a skilled and engaged digital team, supported by IT that is “reliable, safe and secure”, up-to-date and fit for purpose, regardless of location. This was also a focus of Guy’s and St Thomas’ digital strategy to 2030, which seeks to ensure staff are “equipped to thrive in the new digital healthcare environment”.
The CQC’s state of health and adult social care report for 2023/24 also noted challenges relating to a lack of data and analysis skills, with “mixed views” among ICSs about capabilities to address local health inequalities and the need for “better engagement” with the voluntary and community sectors in order to ensure that “seldom heard from” groups at greater risk of inequality are not excluded.
EPR deployment and innovation
A feature article by Gary Mooney from InterSystems last month talked about the current and future value of EPR solutions, looking to the potential of technologies such as AI and machine learning, new models of care, delivering value, and more.
At the beginning of October, we took as deep dive into the current state of the EPR market, looking at recent news, views, and research in this space, as well as predictions for the EPR market in the coming five years, the impact of EHR “nudges” on care quality and outcomes, and more.
We also looked at the news from Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, and Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, who issued a tender sharing their intention to establish a framework for a data partner to support their unified electronic patient record programme.
