Mid and South Essex NHS Trust has awarded a contract worth £305,000 to Nottingham-based Healthcare Business Solutions UK Ltd, for the provision of a referral to treatment digital outpatients solution.
The solution was sought by the trust in order to support triage, review, and management of routine and urgent referrals across the dermatology service, with the aim of reducing the need for face-to-face appointments.
The contract, awarded on price, is to last for an initial term of six months, with an optional extension for three months.
No prior call for competition was published, with the trust opting for a direct award under a compliant PSR Framework – Health Trust Europe – Total workforce Solutions III (Lot 7 – clinical insourcing Solutions Framework). To read the contract award notice in full, please click here.
In September, Mid and South Essex NHS opened a market engagement for a digital-first patient communications solution, indicating its intent to explore options for transforming paper-based patient communications through introducing a digital-first approach.
Wider trend: Health tech procurement
Oldham Council has awarded Manchester start-up My Dental Buddy a two-year contract with a value of £248,000 for the provision of its oral health programme. Founded by dentist Ramzan Mohammed in 2023 to tackle reduced access to NHS dentists, the platform offers a live dashboard for supervising teeth brushing, interactive brushing guides, and dentist-approved educational content to reinforce healthy routines.
Digital Health and Care Wales has awarded a contract worth £136,749 to Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research for the implementation of a FHIR Terminology Software Licence for the Wales Terminology Service, part of its National Data Resource infrastructure. This procurement will support Digital Health and Care Wales in distributing its nationally agreed data and information standards, it states. Beginning in March 2026, the contract will run to the end of February 2028, with a possible extension for a further year to February 2029.
A prior information notice from Cambridgeshire Community Services and Norfolk Community and Health Care has shared the intent to procure a digital physiotherapy clinic including AI support for triage and diagnosis, at an estimated total value of £2 million. The selected solution will offer an end-to-end clinical service for both new and existing patients, according to the trust, “operating as a complete alternative to standard care pathways and not limited to an adjunctive, supplementary, or “waiting well” initiative”.
