PRIVATE firms are being invited to bid for a £150 million contract that includes providing staff to carry out operations in NHS hospitals at weekends over the next five years.
Tender documents published earlier this week by NHS National Services Scotland (NSS) - the procurement arm of the health service - outlines requests for suppliers to provide “teams to carry out procedures utilising NHS Scotland health board facilities (ie. theatres at weekends) to reduce waiting times and/or increase health board capacity to provide increased patient care”.
This would cover a wide range of specialties including anaesthetics, gynaecology, orthopaedics, cardiology, breast surgery, and neurology, among others.
The procurement document - which is split into four separate lots - also invites suppliers to compete for contracts providing “suitably qualified staff” to run virtual diagnostic clinics via an online portal, and for mental health services in hospitals or remotely.
ANALYSIS: Backlogs need cleared - but this changes meaning of 'NHS' care
Both are described as efforts to “reduce the waiting times and/or provide a service that the hospital is unable to provide under its current capacity”.
It was not unusual pre-pandemic for health boards to cover the cost of outsourcing some patients’ operations to private hospitals in a bid to reduce waiting times.
However, the latest move - insourcing private providers into the NHS to make up a shortfall of capacity and manpower - is a reflection of ongoing recruitment challenges and a need to urgently ramp up elective activity, which has been partly hindered by extremely high Covid rates since Omicron began spreading in December.
Suppliers are also asked submit bids to provide fully staffed “mobile/modular units” which “can be placed on sites to increase the capacity of the hospital by increasing space for diagnosing/treating patients and the provision of patient care”.
These temporary, pre-fabricated facilities would be used to accommodate services ranging from cancer wards, emergency rooms, and maternity wards to cardiac surgery, microbiology labs, and intensive care units, among others, according to the contract document.
Modular buildings, which have already been assembled at a number of NHS sites in England, can be custom-built in a matter of weeks and added onto the existing hospital estate.
The contract document makes clear that these are expected to remain in place beyond the initial five-year timeframe.
It states: “It is envisaged that the provision of this service would be a provider of the Mobile/Modular Units providing the staffing as a full service.
“It is envisaged that the services delivered through this lot will be longer term and allow for more consistency through long term agreements for the provision of services.”
Bidders have until September 15 to submit applications.
READ MORE: NHS recovery? Fewer operations taking place now than a year ago
Potential participants are expected to have been trading “for a minimum of two years and have a turnover in excess of £1 million per annum”, but new start-up companies unable to meet this criteria will also be considered on the basis of entering into a six-month pilot project with the relevant health board.
The document also stipulates that successful bidders “must be able to provide evidence of standards applied, approach to staff recruitment and training, monitoring of performance and outcomes/quality/clinical governance, patient consent, complaints and incident handling and records management”.
The tender comes almost a year to the day since the Scottish Government published its five-year NHS Recovery Plan, although statistics for April to June this year showed that the number of elective inpatient and day case procedures being carried out was actually down compared to the same period in 2021.
Scottish Conservative Shadow Health Secretary Dr Sandesh Gulhane MSP: “Humza Yousaf’s flimsy NHS Recovery Plan has simply failed to remobilise crucial services across our health service.
“Now they are left having to outsource a huge contract in a bid to reduce waiting times and the ever-increasing backlog for patients who are suffering.
“My heroic colleagues on the frontline and patients desperate for vital procedures are the ones who are paying the price for a SNP Health Secretary who is missing in action.
“Contracts like this have their place and any attempt to support the delivery of frontline services is welcome.
“However, it is yet another sign that the NHS is in crisis on Humza Yousaf’s watch and that problems are only likely to get worse before they get better.”
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Scottish Labour health spokeswoman, Jackie Baillie, added: “While every effort to increase NHS capacity is welcome, this is symbolic of Humza Yousaf’s complete failure to support our NHS.
“Thanks to years of SNP inaction, broken promises and failure to support staff and boost capacity, the government is being forced to shell out for what should be in-house services.
“We don’t need more sticking plasters – we need a long-term strategy to support staff and boost capacity in our NHS.”
Gordon Beattie, director of national procurement at NHS NSS, said the tender “will allow health boards to access additional capacity if they identify a specific need”.
He added: “It is a renewal of an existing arrangement that is due to expire and is a non-commitment arrangement.”
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