NHS England has been scoping out external support to help deliver digital commitments set out in the 10-Year Health Plan.
A preliminary market engagement notice on the government’s Find a Tender website, published on 20 January and open until 9 February, invited suppliers to express interest in supporting the health service’s digital development.
In the notice, NHS England said the exercise was ‘seeking to understand market interest, capacity, and capability’ and that it may later commission work to scope and procure services.
The notice said any future programme ‘will align with strategic enablers such as the NHS App and Federated Data Platform (FDP), and support implementation of the commitments set out in the NHS 10YHP’.
It added that the work would help deliver a range of clinical and regulatory capabilities to support the development of digital products and services and assist with assurance.
The notice does not set out an estimated contract value, but says that if a contract is awarded, it is estimated to run for three years from 4 January 2027 to 3 January 2030.
NHS England said it welcomed input from potential suppliers via a request for information (RFI) document, as part of the engagement exercise.
Dr Tom Micklewright, clinical lead for digital transformation in primary care for Cheshire and Merseyside ICB, described it as ‘alarming’ that NHS England may need to procure external support for clinical and regulatory assurance of digital products after months of revision, restructure and redundancy at the organisation.
‘This will be particularly painful and baffling to hear for the individuals who spent their careers developing skills in these exact disciplines, only to have been made redundant from their ICB or NHSE roles in the last year.
‘What’s more, clinical safety and regulatory assurance are not one-off processes but require ongoing scrutiny and review, something which lends itself better to embedded, employed members of staff and system infrastructure, rather than to outsourced contractors,’ said Dr Micklewright.
However, he acknowledged that this was only a market engagement exercise for now.
‘It may be that NHSE are simply using this to inform their thinking, rather than to actually build towards a future service procurement,’ he said.
Dr Neil Paul, Cheshire GP and PCN clinical director, said that seeking expertise may have a positive impact on the commitment to move from analogue to digital.
But he warned that it was also important to address ‘the real blockages in general practice’.
‘Digital innovation needs to build on sound foundations and effective infrastructure,’ said Dr Paul.
He said: ‘Many practices (like mine) are having the central (ICB) funding for digital solutions significantly reduced.’
He added that this was happening as practices faced higher regulatory costs because they are being asked to fund clinical safety officer (CSO) assessments required to comply with DCB0160, the NHS clinical risk management standard for health IT systems.
‘In addition to the reduction in funding and increased costs, we are also uncertain where our IT support will come from when the CSUs [commissioning support units] are wound down,’ he said.
Last summer, the government released its 10 Year Health Plan, which included a strong focus on digital and technology, such as expanding the NHS app and increasing the use of AI.
The plan set an ambition to make the NHS ‘the most digitally accessible health system in the world’.
NHS England has been approached for comment.
NHS said they were looking for suppliers to support with:
- Clinical Safety Assurance of Digital Products
- Clinical Safety Engineering Medical Device Services Page
- Clinical Content Authoring
- Clinical Subject Matter Experts
