Sussex Collaborative Non-Urgent Patient Transport Services (PTS) and Patient Transport Bureau
Request for Information (RFI)
The Commissioner will value your views and asks a number of set questions below. We expect you will find some questions more
relevant to you and easier to respond to than others at the moment. Please try to respond to as many as you can as your views are
valuable whether or not you have come across all of the aspects covered.
This is a process designed to help the Commissioner form a view of the best way to commission the service and is not the beginning
of a tender exercise. A further tender advertisement will be issued at the appropriate time as required. What you respond at this point
will not have a bearing on any future tender Bids you may wish to submit at a later time. You will not be disadvantaged if you choose
not to respond to this RFI but it will be helpful to understand your views at this early stage, so you are encouraged to respond as fully
as you can.
Please provide the information on page 2 by Friday 6th June 2014 in advance of returning the full questionnaire so that we can
invite key stakeholders to attend a provider engagement event to be scheduled in late June, early July.
Please return the questionnaire in full by Monday 16th June 2014
Send to [email protected] and copy to Mark Tearle [email protected]
If you would like to discuss any aspects of the requirements before Monday 16th June, please call Ben Banfield, Commissioning
Support Manager NHS High Weald Lewes and Havens CCG on 01273 485336 – or send an email to [email protected]
suggesting a date/time for a telephone conversation.
All responses to this RFI will remain confidential.
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Please provide your name and contact details in the table below.
Organisation Name
2
Name
Position
Telephone
E-mail
Non-Urgent Patient Transport Services and Patient Transport Bureau Services
RFI RESPONSE – Part 1
Specification
PTS SPEC
PTB Service Spec V4
PROCUREMENT 2011.12 v6Final
Final..pdf
2012.pdf
Please:
 provide any general comments you have on the clarity of requirements
 identify any aspects of the current specification that you feel are ambiguous or unclear
 comment on the scope of the service specification
 please offer your thoughts on what information providers would need from commissioners in order to properly plan their
service
Response:
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Non-Urgent Patient Transport Services and Patient Transport Bureau Services
RFI RESPONSE – Part 2
General
Please respond to each of the questions below in the response section of the table.
Question
1
Service Model
What, if any, do you envisage to be the most significant local
challenges in delivering the service as set out in the specification?
And how would you consider this could be addressed?
2
Can you identify any gaps in terms of requirements for service that are
not covered by the current specification?
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Response
3
Service Delivery
a) How would you ensure that the service provided is sensitive to the
varying needs of the local population? (Patient mobility types,
travel to and from location and provision of care, e.g.:
- General outpatients treatments
- Regular outpatient treatments e.g. chemotherapy,
physiotherapy and renal
- Admissions and discharges of day patients or in-patients
- Appointments for rapid access clinics or ambulatory care
services. These journeys will often have to take place on the
day of booking at short notice
- Treatment and investigative/diagnostic tests e.g. X-rays, blood
tests or surgical day cases
- Transfer of patients between NHS healthcare facilities and
nursing and/or residential homes
- Unplanned transfers and discharges from A&E centres, walk in
centres, urgent care centres, medical assessment units or
other locations where a return journey is required following
admission by A&E or other means
- Ad hoc requests in which occasionally unpredictable long
distance journeys will be required.
- Patients for whom timeliness of transport is critical e.g. to fixed
appointment times or packages of care
- More vulnerable patients such as those receiving end of life
care, or patients with mental health needs, for example.
b) How would you seek to ensure that Patient Transport booking and
dispatch process works well. Please consider that there may be
numerous providers of Patient Transport and that all providers
must be fully engaged.
c) How would you ensure that there is sufficient capacity at peak
times in demand? E.g. late afternoon hospital discharges or
morning outpatient clinics
d) How can we manage the needs of patients requesting transport,
who do not meet the eligibility criteria for the PTS service?
e) What mechanisms are available for engaging harder to reach
patients?
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The commissioner/s are open to ideas regarding the service structure:
For example, potential options include:
 Service offered by a single service provider across the
geographical areas incorporating:
- NHS Hastings and Rother CCG area
- NHS Eastbourne Hailsham and Seaford CCG area
- NHS High Weald Lewes and Havens CCG area
- NHS Horsham and Mid Sussex CCG area
- NHS Crawley CCG area
- NHS Coastal West Sussex CCG area
- NHS Brighton and Hove CCG area
 The service offered to a single lead provider managing a mixed
market of sub-contracted providers.
 The service offered split into geographical lots within the CCG
geography as above.
 The service offered split into lots according to factors such as:
- patient mobility type
- journey type e.g. outpatients, renal patients, inpatient
discharge
- journeys planned in advance or those booked on day
- any other factors that might be used to split the service
into sensible lots (please make suggestions)

CCGs managing market tendering independently of each other
We are interested to receive views from potential providers around
these ideas. In particular, whether you would perceive any challenges
in being able to deliver this service in any case.
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6
Does the attached service specification allow you to be innovative to
the extent that you feel you could be in providing this service? What
are the potential opportunities for a future service?
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Workforce skills
Workforce knowledge and skills form an important aspect of service
quality. How could the workforce aspects of the service specification
be further developed to drive quality and safety standards, and the
delivery of compassionate care?
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8
Outcomes and efficiency of service
The commissioner would like to drive efficiencies across the nonurgent patient transport service, including:
- avoiding waste driven by errors, or aborted journeys or delays
- keeping waiting times for transport as short as possible
- keeping journey lengths as short as possible
- ensuring ‘handover’ of patients between the PTS provider and other
healthcare providers works as well as possible
- enabling joint working with transport services provided by local
authorities or the community & voluntary sector
- encouraging patients and healthcare providers to use the service
efficiently
What opportunities can you see to achieve the above?
Are there any obstacles, and if so, how would you overcome them?
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How do you build in social value* via patient transport?
*Social value is a way of thinking about how scarce resources are
allocated and used. It involves looking beyond the price of each
individual contract and looking at what the collective benefit to a
community is when a public body chooses to award a contract.
Social value asks the question: ‘If £1 is spent on the delivery of
services, can that same £1 be used, to also produce a wider benefit to
the community?’
10 Do you have any general comments about the specifications?
e.g. potential changes that in your view would enable the delivery of a
more efficient or effective Patient Transport Service.
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Non-Urgent Patient Transport Services and Patient Transport Bureau Services
RFI RESPONSE – Part 3
Main/Sub Contractors
The commissioner may consider using competitive tendering as a potential route to commission the service. Please note (a) any
commissioning for NEPTS and PTB will be advertised on Contracts Finder and OJEU in line with the regulations for public
procurement and (b) potential providers are advised to register on Contracts Finder in advance to receive automated alerts.
We wish to offer the opportunity to Providers so that should they wish to do so they may:
1) submit their contact details for inclusion in a list headed “Wish to be a Sub Contractor and contacted by potential Main
Contractors”
and/or
2) submit their contact details for inclusion in a list headed “Wish to be a Main Contractor and contacted by potential Sub
Contractors”.
and/or
3) sumbit their contact details for inclusion in a list headed “Wish to be an approved contractor within a Framework”
Providers wishing to appear on the lists should complete the table below.
Lists are likely to be shared between CCGs and will be circulated to all Providers responding to this Request for Information
document.
Provider name
Contact person
Contact persons email and/or
phone number
The list that details are to appear
on
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-
To be a Main Contractor Yes / No
To be a Sub Contractor
Yes / No
To be on an approved Framework Yes / No
Important notice about using this opportunity
The commissioning CCGs give no endorsement or take any responsibility for the suitability of Providers appearing on either of the
lists.
It is the responsibility of Providers to undertake their own investigations and draw their own conclusions about the suitability of other
Providers they may consider when entering into a business relationship.
This procedure is only intended to allow the exchange of contact information between Providers. Providers should use their judgment
about when they may wish to contact potential main/sub contractors appearing on the lists.
Providers are under no obligation to use this opportunity and will not be disadvantaged if they choose not to do so.
If in the future, the Commissioner does choose to use a competitive tender process as their route to commission services, providers
who do not use this opportunity may still chose to submit documentation e.g. a completed pre-qualification questionnaire or invitation
to tender etc. containing a main or subcontractor relationship at that stage.
Please return your completed document using the information shown on page 1.
Thank you.
We appreciate your help and time to consider the documentation provided and to enter your views in this RFI.
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