This procurement is for 2 lots:

Lot 1 — The provision of a Non-Emergency Patient Transport Service and;

Lot 2 — Transport Booking Service to Plymouth.

Further details about each lot are provided below.

The Department of Health defines non-emergency Patient Transport Services (NEPTS) as the ‘non-urgent, planned, transportation of patients with a medical need for transport to and from a premises providing NHS healthcare and between NHS healthcare providers’.

Services that are included in this procurement are:

The NEPTS will cover Plymouth NHS Healthcare sites (to and from) and patients registered with GPs in PL1 to PL9.

The service will predominantly convey eligible patients in multi seated vehicles to cope with a variety of wheelchair carrying options that will only be for medically eligible patients as assessed by the Plymouth Transport Booking Service. The service will cover all mobility types. Essentially stretchers, some wheelchair users and bariatric patients.

Whilst ‘walkers’ are included it is expected that the service (in pursuit of value for public-money and CO2 footprint management) will be mainly delivered in multi-seated vehicles such as existing NEPTS ambulance models and single patient car journeys actively discouraged.

The PTS provider will be required to have a PTS planning and coordinating function that interfaces with the Plymouth Transport Booking Service within the hours the Plymouth Transport Booking Service operates and have a system for the period that the PTS operates that is outside the Plymouth Transport Booking Service operating hours.

Summary of the Services Required:

— To be responsible for the mini procurements for the journeys that are outside of the main contract (e.g. HDU/paramedic, taxi, wheelchair accessible vehicles, control and restraint, out of hours, out of area journeys and exceptions to the main PTS contract),

— Book transport for all eligible patients,

— To be the first point of contact for patients and professionals in booking transport and offer advice to those that need further advice and are not eligible for NHS transport. To deal with the requests with no hand backs to other providers,

— To have a system to record all bookings and report all activity to the Commissioners,

— To liaise with the ambulance providers and book appropriate transport to the patients need where NHS transport is appropriate,

— To receive all invoices for all transport providers,

— To validate all invoices against the information system,

— To be responsible for sorting out any payment queries,

— Pay validated invoices,

— Re-charge to CCG with appropriate backing information.