It is the intention of NHS Greater Preston Clinical Commissioning Group, Chorley & South Ribble Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and NHS England Greater Manchester and Lancashire area team (the Commissioners) to lead a procurement process to seek a provider to offer high quality, safe primary medical services for circa 2,700 care home residents across the two CCGs from 1st April 2017.

The service is currently being delivered by more than 50 general practices in the health economy under a variety of General Medical Services (GMS), Personal Medical Services (PMS) and Alternate Provider Medical Services (APMS) contracts.

The aim of the service is to provide comprehensive, proactive medical services to residents of care homes in accordance with a detailed service specification.

This will be a 7 day, at scale service for all care homes across the two CCGs, and will ensure that care home residents registered with the service receive consistently high quality medical support services.

It is envisaged that the service will operate a patient choice model, which will mean that whilst patients ultimately do not have to take up this service, there is an expectation that 2,000 of the 2,700 care home residents in the two CCGs will transfer into the service in the first two years of operation.

The Commissioners envisage delivery of the new service through a primary care registered list based provider, creating a virtual general practice which is specific to care home residents.

To date there has been extensive engagement with providers of the service and with those who will be affected by the change; the proposal has received endorsement from key partners in the local health and social care economy.

This engagement has included discussions with General Practices, patient groups and Care Home managers.

National evidence from similar initiatives and a clinical reference panel have been used to help inform the new service specification.

The annual contract values will reflect the number of patients registered with the care home practice.

Service mobilisation is anticipated in April 2017, this being predicated on successful completion of the procurement phase and the new provider’s ability to mobilise and implement the service within this ambitious time frame.

The Commissioners wish to consult with providers about their intended approach prior to commissioning the services and commencing a procurement exercise.

This consultation will comprise of: • Q&A’s to gather feedback from providers on the draft specification • Feedback, used by the Commissioners to shape the way forward • An invitation to a provider consultation event to be held at 2pm on Thursday, 17th November 2016 We would welcome a response from your organisation, indicating your intention to attend the event – if you wish to do so please reply no later than 14 October 2016 by emailing Rachel Roocroft at rachel.roocroft@nhs.net