Out of hours contract for Community Hospitals

Provision of a GP Out of Hours Service for Community Hospitals

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Cre NHS Trust award of contract for provision of a GP Out of Hours Service for Community Hospitals under the Provider Selection Regime urgent award provision. Community Hospitals provide inpatient services for adults, focused on sub-acute care, rehabilitation, and long-term care planning. This contract ensures the provision of medical cover during evenings, nights, weekends, and bank holidays, maintaining continuity of care and ensuring patients’ clinical needs are met while staff have access to appropriate medical support during out-of-hours periods.

Due to changes in commissioning arrangements the Trust was required to establish its own contract arrangements from July 2026. The circumstances around the changes mean the criteria for an Urgent Award is met

• The award or modification must be made urgently.
• The reason for the urgency was not foreseeable by and was not attributable to the relevant authority.
• Delaying the award of the contract to conduct a full application of the Regulations would be likely to pose a risk to patient or public safety.

The Contract ward was approved by the Trust 15th June 2026 with a start date of 8th July 2026, the contract will conclude 8th July 2028.

The recommended contract period is two years. Following a change in service model, year one will focus on developing a robust dataset to better understand service demand, activity levels, and utilisation patterns related to the new service model. This information will be used to refine ways of working and inform continuous service improvement, while also supporting the development of future internal service models and contract specification. Year two will be dedicated to completing the required procurement process to formally tender the service, ensuring a well-informed, transparent, and sustainable approach to commissioning based on the evidence gathered in the first year.