New Opportunities for Care Providers

Dec 3
Tendering under the new Regulations provides opportunities and problems to providers used to working under the 2015 PCRs.   Perhaps one of the most noticeable changes, although not widely publicised, is that the words "tendering" and "procurement" do not appear anywhere in the Regulations. These words are replace throughout by the term "offer". The whole thrust of the legislation appears to be to competition to a minimum, indeed the rules allow a competitive approach in one of the five award processes only. There is a heavy emphasis on integration and collaboration.

Since competitive tendering was introduced to NHS buying under the 2012 Regulations, remember that all other public buying fell under the Procurement Contract Regulations from 2006! the processes have been seen as onerous, creating limitations which made flexible responses to needs difficult to achieve. The overall reaction to COVID, PPE buying was an example. But a way was found within the rules to enable the purchase of millions of doses of vaccines, a response which was both timely and led the world.
Nevertheless, the organisation wanted the ability to react outside the wide Procurement Rules. In recommending the new Regulations to the House of Lords the Minister said "The NHS identified that use of the current procurement rules presented a bureaucratic barrier to bringing NHS organisations and partners together. The NHS wanted a framework that would allow it to be flexible in different scenarios; that allowed for competition, without defaulting to it; and that supported the increased need for alignment of services, so that we can join up care for patients. The Government developed this legislative framework in the light of those requests. In June 2019, the Health and Social Care Committee agreed that that was the right approach to ease the burden procurement rules have placed on the NHS, ensuring commissioners have discretion over when to conduct a procurement process”.
The Health Care Provider Selection Regime Regulations 2023 as approved by Parliament on 29th November 2023. The Regulations do meet the requirements ar stated, providing much more flexibility for the buyers and with that more opportunities for providers.

What are the new Award Processes

The Regulations set out five processes together with the circumstances which, in some cases, a specific process must be used; together with a general description of each process itself. Five of the processes state that a competitive process may not be used. The processes are:
Direct Award A - to be used where an existing provider is in place;
Direct Award B - to be used in circumstances where patient choice is a factor in contract award;
Direct Award C - to be used where an existing provider is in place, but the terms of the new contract differ substantially for the existing one;
Most Suitable Provider - to be used where the buyer is able to identify a provider;
and
A competitive process which is similar in many ways to the open procedure under the 2015 PCRs.
For a detailed description of these processes and the Bonus module which describes the scoring criteria and what the buyers will be looking for please go to our course
"Social Care Tendering 2024 - (Part 1).
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