South ambulance trusts issue tender

Four southern ambulance trusts have issued a tender for IT services worth £19m.

The ambulance project is one of four parts to the Southern Local Clinical Systems programme which also includes South Acute, South Integration and South Community and Child Health.

The SLCS programme is for the 60% of providers in the South that otherwise got nothing from the National Programme for IT in the NHS.

The business case for the four southern ambulance trusts has now been approved by the Department of Health and Treasury and a formal tender notice has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

The tender notice says the trusts require an Ambulance IT service to support the electronic patient record form and associated decision support processes.

“This procurement is to select a single supplier who will deliver a fully managed service that allows these ambulance trusts, with a cumulative requirement covering circa 1800 vehicles and 8000 staff, to electronically capture, exchange and report on patient information,” the OJEU notice says.

“Each trust will award their own contract however all trusts will appoint the same single contractor and reserves the right to elect not to enter into a contract with the selected supplier at the end of the procurement.”

The contract is worth £19 over four years with the possibility to extend this for up to two years. Bids must be received by 1 March.

The ambulance project is the second in the SLCS programme to gain approval for central funding following the community and child health project, which was approved in June 2012. That contract, covering nine organisations in the South, was recently awarded to TPP.

These are positive signs for the consolidated outline business case for the six southern acute projects, which is currently going through the central approval process.

The trusts involved in the ambulance tender are: South Western Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust; Great Western Ambulance Service NHS Trust; South East Coast Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust; and South Central Ambulance Service NHS Foundation Trust.