NHS Low Calorie Diet Programme

he NHS Diabetes Programme, a joint partnership between NHS England and NHS Improvement, Public Health England and Diabetes UK, wish to procure a maximum of 11 providers to deliver at scale a Low Calorie Diet intervention consisting of the provision of 12 weeks of Total Diet Replacement products alongside a 12 month structured programme of support to people living with Type 2 diabetes provided in either in groups, through one to one sessions or using digital methods to eligible participants with Type 2 diabetes. Each provider will work with one of 11 ICS sites delivering the intervention to up to 500 participants.

The contracts will initially be for a period of 3 years (referrals accepted for 2 years) with an option to extend for a further 24 months subject to the outcomes of the programme. NHS England reserves the right to increase the number of behavioural interventions to be delivered per annum. The numbers of behavioural interventions may vary during the term of the contract.

NHS England wishes to notify potential providers about its intention to expand the NHS Low Calorie Diet Programme across the whole of England, procuring contracts to deliver the programme for 2 years with an option to extend for a further year. It is anticipated that providers would be required to deliver services locally or at scale and potentially through delivery channels such as one to one, group, digital, remote, videoconference, or a combination of these.

This expansion will build on experience of delivery to date and aim to:

• Widen access, particularly for individuals who experience health inequalities;
• Improve uptake and retention on courses to maximise benefit;
• Ensure universal availability of services for the benefit of eligible individuals;
• Encourage innovation to improve quality and effectiveness of services; and
• Achieve best value for money and sustainability of services.

Provider engagement event Potential providers are encouraged to attend a market information / engagement session to hear more detail about current plans for the programme expansion, and to share insight to further inform these. The event is to be held virtually on 15 June 2022, 12.30pm – 2pm, via Microsoft Teams.

Provider engagement survey In addition, we will be issuing a market engagement survey to those providers that express interest, to gather views on the design of services and procurement approach.

To access details about this procurement, please follow the following steps: 1. Register on Atamis http://health.atamis.co.uk/ 2. Access the ‘NHS Low Calorie Diet Programme’ project 3. To register your interest and receive further details about the event, please complete the supplier Expression of Interest questionnaire within Project C78909.

For those suppliers who are unable to attend the session, a summary of key discussions will be made available to those who have registered upon request.