Community Cataracts Surgery Service in Northamptonshire

NHS Northamptonshire CCG (the Authority) is procuring a Community Cataract Surgery service in Northamptonshire. The procurement will be undertaken as an AQP (any qualified provider) process.

The contract will be a three (3) year period commencing in December 2022.

The Provider will:

• Deliver high quality and value for money cataract services that reflect the best practice guidance set out by the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, Getting it Right First Time and the NHSE National Eye Care Recovery and Transformation Programme (NECRTP) and NICE.

• Maintain capacity to support the overall commissioned activity of the ICS, thus ensuring delivery of the national 18-week referral to treatment (RTT) cataract pathway and reduction in waiting list backlogs.

• Maintain access to cataract services in accessible hospital and community settings, that provides care closer to home, improves choice, delivers greater consistency and equity in access to services across the localities within Northamptonshire. Please note that all sites must be located within Northamptonshire.

The key objectives of the service are:

• To ensure the provision of safe and effective cataract service provision to NHS patients

• To free up outpatient and primary eye care capacity for patients at higher risk of sight loss

• To ensure the delivery of training for the next generation of consultant ophthalmologists through equitable delivery of training to NHS trainees in all providers of NHS cataract surgery

• To ensure Service Users with urgent post-surgery issues and complications can be advised and managed by the Provider's own surgical ophthalmic team with any requirement and resource for other providers to support this clearly agreed.

• To achieve, and drive improvements in, the NECRTP high flow cataract pathway.

The procurement is being run via the ProContract (Proactis) e-system where all procurement documents are available. Providers who do not have an account can register at the link here, https://procontract.due-north.com/Register