NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board Barnsley Place : Out Of Hours Service

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) Barnsley Place (the ‘Authority') intends to extend the contract for the Out of Hours service without competition until 30 September 2024 to the incumbent provider as detailed below:

Barnsley Healthcare Federation (BHF) CIC Principal and/or registered office address: Oaks Park Primary Care Centre, Thornton Road, Kendray, BARNSLEY, S70 3NE

The aim of the primary care Out of Hours (OOH) services is a comprehensive, urgent, primary care service for Barnsley Place’s relevant population during out-of-hours. Services are provided through a model of integration so patient flow between services is smooth and defined. OOH is a critical component of emergency and urgent care, enabling people to receive the right level of care in the right location, to reduce hospital attendances and admissions.

A thorough review of the Out of Hours contract and services required was planned to ensure that the service specification accurately reflects service need and any service commissioned does not overlap with other provision which would potentially result in public funds being used ineffectively.

Up to 30/9/2022 the current OOH service was delivered in tandem with the Extended Access service also contracted to BHF. The Extended Access services had been subject to national review and on 1/10/22, the Enhanced Access service became part of the PCN Network DES. The model for Enhanced Access is a hybrid of delivery of hours by the GP practices and also i-Heart hub appointments as delivered by Barnsley Healthcare Federation by a sub contract arrangement with the PCN. However, delivery of the model has only been in place for a short time and systems for provision of data for the service are currently in development.

Additionally, a new GP contract will be introduced in 2024, the details of changes this will introduce are not currently known or the impact it will have on the model for delivery of primary care services. These factors therefore impact on the completion of a review of the OOH service specification and tendering for services difficult.

It would not be in the public’s best interests to procure a model that may no longer be right for the local population. Nor would it be in the public’s best interests to de-commission a service that currently provides approximately 27,700 appointments per year to the people of Barnsley without some alternative.

These patients would instead need to access either normal GP practice services or there would also be an additional risk of increasing unnecessary A & E attendance for routine general medical services. Ceasing the contract at the end of March 2023 would greatly impact patient access and would put a considerable burden back into GP practices at a time when resources are stretched to meet the priority mandates from NHS England. Therefore, NHS South Yorkshire ICB recognises that it is necessary to further extend the Out of Hours service to 30 September 2024.

The contract value is currently £1,707,000 per year. The equivalent for the 18 months 01/04/23 to 30/09/24 would be £2,560,500 excluding any uplifts that might be applied to the period 01/04/24 to 30/09/24 as and when 2023/24 contract discussions are concluded.