Primary Care Service for the provision of Community Anti-Coagulation Treatment

Procurement of a Primary Care Service Specification for the provision of anticoagulation treatment under an Any Qualified Provider (AQP) approach.

The Commissioner is [NHS Canterbury and Coastal CCG and NHS South Kent Coast CCG] as Lead Commissioner, [NHS Ashford CCG] as Associate Commissioners.

The Commissioner is supported in this project by NHS South East CSU (SECSU) and its procurement partner NHS Commercial Solutions (NHSCS), which is managing this procurement.

The overall aim of the service is to provide eligible patients with access to an integrated out of hospital anticoagulation service for medication (warfarin and acencoumarol) that requires International Normalized Ratio (INR) monitoring.

This service will provide the monitoring required and provide prescriptions for the medication.

The contractor will provide on-going monitoring for patients who have already been initiated on warfarin treatment and who have the following diagnoses: • non-valvular and valvular atrial fibrillation (CHA2DS2VASc ≥1) • a confirmed diagnosis of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) or Pulmonary Embolism (PE), who have been discharged from a recognised diagnostic service and have been referred by a specialist with a clear duration of treatment and INR target range specified. • Stable mechanical valves. • Other diagnoses where the specialist and contractor agree that ongoing monitoring in primary care is appropriate.

With this AQP approach all bidders who complete the accreditation process to (a) demonstrate capability and capacity to deliver the service and (b) accept the standard NHS contract terms and conditions and (c) accept the Commissioner's local tariff price will become qualified providers.

All qualified providers will be offered the standard NHS contract with the same terms, conditions, and price.

The contract will have no guaranteed minimum level of activity and no restricted maximum level of activity.

Providers will be paid according to the actual activity level delivered.

Bidders should note that the indicative contract value is an estimated total cost of the service rather than an individual contract value, as it will be spread across multiple providers.

The service has a tariff which is determined in advance by the commissioner and applied to all providers equally.

The provider has no guaranteed level of activity, and hence no guaranteed contract value.