The East and North Hertfordshire NHS Trust (“ENHT") and the Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust ("HCT") (together "the Authorities") have a backlog of children on their clinic lists who require an Autism Diagnostic Assessment.
The Authorities are working with the Herts Wide CCG to outsource most of these patients in an effort to reduce the waiting times for an assessment and to enable the implementation of a new diagnostic process. As such, the Authorities are seeking proposals from appropriately qualified companies who can take on the outstanding assessments to assist with clearing the backlog.
The Authorities are seeking a value for money, high quality service that will be responsive to the needs of the client. Robust contract management and good effective liaison with the Authorities' key contacts will be required.
Contracts are anticipated to go live in July 2021 and will run until the backlog of assessments is completed. It is expected that the contract term will be less than a year.
The Supplier will be required to carry out Autism Diagnostic Assessments on the cohort of children that is provided to them on behalf of the Authorities, at the scale required and within the timeframes of delivery.
The Supplier will be required to outline where the assessments will take place, whether these will these be face to face Autism Diagnostic Assessments or virtual.
The Supplier will be an expert provider of NICE compliant Autism Diagnostic assessments and will be familiar with all methods and diagnostic tools used.
Part of the service will include providing feedback and a completed report to the parents and child, as well as a copy of the final report to the ENHT and HCT Community Paediatrics teams for their records.
The Supplier will provide monthly updates in a format agreed by the Authorities, reporting on completed assessments, summarising the number of children diagnosed, those who have not attended their appointment and those whose assessment has resulted in a non-diagnosis.
The Supplier shall performance monitor its activities/ services to demonstrate that the Services are achieved and where not achieved the extent of any shortfall is identified, reported and acted upon.
Detailed supporting information will be made available to the Authorities should it be required, and all reports must be provided in the manner prescribed and in accordance with GDPR legislation, to ensure that the Authorities are able to access data as and when required.