Solent NHS Trust Light Touch Regime Tender for the Provision of Autism Assessments

Solent NHS Trust ("the Authority") have a backlog of children on their clinic lists who require an Autism Diagnostic Assessment.

The Authority is looking to outsource most of these patients in an effort to reduce the waiting times for an assessment and to enable the implementation of a new diagnostic process.

As such, the Authority is seeking proposals from suitably qualified and experienced companies who can take on the outstanding assessments to assist with clearing the backlog.

The Authority is seeking a value for money, high quality service that will be responsive to the needs of the client.

Contracts are anticipated to go live in January 2024 and will run until the backlog of assessments is completed.

It is expected that the contract term will be 6 months.

The Supplier will be required to carry out Autism Diagnostic Assessments on the cohort of children that is provided to them on behalf of the Authority, at the scale required and within the timeframes of delivery.

The Supplier will be required to outline where the assessments will take place, whether these will these be face to face Autism Diagnostic Assessments or virtual.

The Supplier will be an expert provider of NICE compliant Autism Diagnostic assessments and will be familiar with all methods and diagnostic tools used.

Part of the service will include providing feedback and a completed report to the parents and child, as well as a copy of the final report to the CAMHS Team for their records and the original referrer.

The Supplier will provide monthly updates in a format agreed by the Authority, reporting on completed assessments, summarising the number of children diagnosed, those who have not attended their appointment and those whose assessment has resulted in a non-diagnosis.

The Supplier shall performance monitor its activities/ services to demonstrate that the Services are achieved and where not achieved the extent of any shortfall is identified, reported and acted upon.

Detailed supporting information will be made available to the Authority should it be required, and all reports must be provided in the manner prescribed and in accordance with GDPR legislation, to ensure that the Authority is able to access data as and when required.

The contract will be for an initial period of 6 months with the option to extend for a further 6 months subject to satisfactory performance and at the discretion of the Contracting Authority.

The contract will commence from January 2024.

This procurement process will mirror that of the Open procedure as in compliance with the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended) in respect of Health Care Services under the Light Touch Regime, Regulations 74 - 76 and the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice & Competition) (No.

2) Regulations 2013.