The Awarding Authority is seeking undertake a reprocurement of an existing contract for a GMS IT System Services framework agreement. The key components of the new agreement will include (without limitation) the delivery of a managed service, including the following:

– Provision, ongoing development, upgrade and maintenance of GMS clinical system software solutions;

– Provision of central hosting and all associated Services to deliver this functionality as a Managed Service;

– Provision of application support services at an infrastructure level (in support of central hosting arrangements) and at the user level (as second or third line support to the NHS Wales help desk).

At a more detailed level the scope of the new framework agreement will include (without limitation) the following:

Delivery of GMS IT Clinical System Services to embrace the following key areas:

– Intuitive functionality which support the requirements of the GMS Contract;

– Functionality and interoperability requirements for NHS Wales national services;

– Hosted, web-based patient centric service with the functional capability to adapt and respond to future service delivery requirements across Primary, Community and Social Care Settings (General Medical Services) as well as facilitate remote mobile working as appropriate.

– Services (including appropriate 3rd party products) which support core clinical business functions through compliance with NHS Wales national Architecture and Interoperability Framework Standards Further details concerning the scope and nature of the requirement shall be included with subsequent documentation.

It is the expectation of the Contracting Authority to enter into an arrangement for the supply of the required services that will be structured in a manner that will facilitate VAT recovery by the Contracting Authority on all associated costs of the arrangement under the appropriate NHS VAT Contracted Out Services relief, on the basis that it qualifies as a fully managed outsourced service by meeting all the requirements for such arrangements as laid down by the relevant Tax Authority. It is the expectation of the Contracting Authority to enter into an arrangement for the supply of any solution/service that will be structured in a manner that will allow all associated costs of the arrangement to be kept off- balance sheet under International Financial Reporting Standards.

The Authority is procuring a framework the term of which exceeds four (4) years in duration. The Authority is of the view that the nature of the subject matter of the framework requires extended implementation and demobilisation periods for providers and the extended duration is required to give providers under the framework agreement sufficient time to undertake these activities.

In accordance with the PCR 2015, the Authority has published its outline Requirement (Schedule 2.1 Authority Requirements) and the draft terms and conditions (together with such other schedules as the Authority considers will inform Bidders sufficiently at this stage) together with this PQQ. Bidders are to note that these documents are not in final form and will be developed further during the competitive dialogue process.