Jersey General Hospital provides the wide range of acute services that would be expected in a District General Hospital, despite serving a population of only 100,000. Jersey, as a British Crown Dependency, is relatively isolated, as an Island jurisdiction. Travel off-island is sometimes difficult; Jersey is fog-bound for an average of 30 days per year, and sea travel to the UK takes a minimum of 4 hours. It is critical that hospital services for 24/7 emergency care, maternity care and essential supporting services continue to be available, that there is sufficient spare capacity to deal with peaks of demand and that the hospital remains at the heart of an integrated health and social care system.
Certain procedures are not undertaken in Jersey either due to their complex nature or equipment requirements. The size of the population and the incidence of medical and surgical conditions on the Island limits the number of certain procedures that clinicians are able to perform and therefore it can be difficult to maintain the necessary levels of skill, competency, accreditation and insurance.
It is important for prospective providers to note that the UK NHS Payment by Results (PbR) system is not operated by the States of Jersey. We do not have access the NHS Secondary Uses Services data warehouse used by NHS commissioners to validate activity data, nor do we have access to policy and technical decisions in relation to local or national agreements within the NHS on tariff developments or initiatives such as CQUIN. We are not part of the England Specialist Commissioning arrangements nor are we constrained by NHS waiting time standards.
The aim of this procurement is to secure best value services at the best price providing excellent customer experience for Jersey patients and their families and carers. In common with other Island communities we face considerable challenges in meeting increasing demand and being able to provide modern evidenced based care on Island. We wish to award contract(s) to enhance the services we are already able to provide on Island to ensure we provide a safe, sustainable, efficient and value for money acute service for Islanders.
During 2014/15 we will be tendering for the full range of overseas care and we are commencing with cradle to grave services for Renal, Urology and Uro-gynaecology. We are aiming to secure a strategic partnership that will provide the highest quality services and support our clinical teams to develop improved ways of working as part of the Islands Acute Services Strategy.
The estimated value (at 2013 NHS tariff prices) of the clinical service contract is £900,000 per year with an 85:15 percentage split between elective and non-elective work. However, given the size of our population, the nature of our Island acute services and advances in treatments and technologies, it is difficult to predict the exact nature and volume of the activity we require off Island from a year to year basis.