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First MCP contract put out to tender at a value of £5bn in Dudley

First MCP contract put out to tender at a value of £5bn in Dudley
By Carolyn Wickware
12 June 2017



Healthcare providers have been invited by NHS Dudley CCG to bid in the first multispecialty community provider contract that has been put out to tender.

Under the contract, worth up to £5.4bn, the care provider will be expected to deliver a range of services including urgent and end of life care to over 300,000 patients for 15 years.

Healthcare providers have been invited by NHS Dudley CCG to bid in the first multispecialty community provider contract that has been put out to tender.

Under the contract, worth up to £5.4bn, the care provider will be expected to deliver a range of services including urgent and end of life care to over 300,000 patients for 15 years.

In addition to a range of healthcare services and taking on ‘activities currently carried out by the CCG’, such as financial management and IT, the provider may also be asked to take on services currently provided by local government.

The procurement description says that ‘during the lifetime of the contract’ the provider could also be asked to deliver services currently commissioned by the voluntary sector and ‘any other related ancillary services’ to public health.

Mr Paul Maubach said the site is an 'extensive MCP model' that not only includes primary and community services but also services that are traditionally delivered in a hospital setting.

He said: 'We think, with all the evidence, that it really delivers better patient care and it also really delivers much better clinical relationships and integration between GPs and other parts of the system.'

He added that the CCG 'fully expects' a lot of services to continue to be provided from the hospital, 'it's just they'll be integrated in the way they work with the GP practice'.

The plans will create the first multispecialty community provider (MCP), launched by former Prime Minister David Cameron as a ‘voluntary contract’ in 2015.

Bids for the contract will close on 13 July, with the contract coming into effect on 1 April 2018, a full year after NHS England’s six MCP pilot areas were expected to launch.

The contract is valued at a range of between £3.5bn and £5.4bn depending on the extent to which local GPs are integrated with the MCP.

According to NHS Dudley CCG governing body papers released in May, integration with general practice ‘is a critical feature’ of the MCP, with GPs joining through either a ‘partially integrated’ or ‘fully integrated’ voluntary contract.

The papers add: ‘It will be for each practice to determine whether it wishes to be ‘partially’ or ‘fully’ integrated’.

Dr Maubach said the 'whole point' of the model is to give the practice the choice as to how they want to work with the MCP, adding that a practice can even switch from partially to fully integrated if they want.

However, Dr Richard Vautrey, deputy chair of the BMA's GP committee, urged GPs to be cautious when 'moving to a time-limited contract'.

He said: 'The key issue is that whilst the MCP model is being promoted in some areas, we would contend that there are many other ways that practices can collaborate both with one another and with other organisations and social care within their area without necessarily putting their long-term GMS/PMS contract in jeopardy.

'Once a practice has moved into an MCP arrangement it certainly risks the long term viability of their contract so they need to be absolutely confident that that's the right choice for them and their patients and also their successors because this is a once in a generation change that they will be making.'

This could be one of the largest NHS services tenders after NHS Manchester CCGs sought to procure a 10-year contract covering all non-acute care for £6bn.

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