Community Dermatology Service Lewisham

Description

The Community Dermatology Service will play a key role in supporting Lewisham borough in delivering its strategy to optimise the value of referrals and improve patient experience and outcomes. The service will manage a broad range of dermatological conditions and support the development of sustainable care pathways, which are cost-effective, responsive to local need, clearly articulated between clinical partners and underpinned by a combination of effective referral optimisation and robust educational support. The Community Service will also play a pivotal role in strengthening the dermatology offering across Lewisham, by providing a link between primary and secondary care, building capacity and expertise within the community and diverting less complex activity away from the acute trusts, thereby improving access to secondary care for those patients requiring consultant- led treatment. Lot 1: This is a competitive procurement process under Provider Selection Regime 2023. The Community Dermatology Service will play a key role in supporting Lewisham borough in delivering its strategy to optimise the value of referrals and improve patient experience and outcomes. The service will manage a broad range of dermatological conditions and support the development of sustainable care pathways, which are cost-effective, responsive to local need, clearly articulated between clinical partners and underpinned by a combination of effective referral optimisation and robust educational support. The Community Service will also play a pivotal role in strengthening the dermatology offering across Lewisham, by providing a link between primary and secondary care, building capacity and expertise within the community and diverting less complex activity away from the acute trusts, thereby improving access to secondary care for those patients requiring consultant- led treatment. Service Description The Community Dermatology Service will be available to all patients registered with GP practices within Lewisham. A) A single point of referral and triage for non-urgent dermatology referrals. It is the system intention that there will be a RAS (Referral Assessment Service) in place at Lewisham and Greenwich Trust for all non-urgent dermatology referrals, this will ensure that each patient is directed to the most appropriate setting. Referrals sent to the RAS will be clinically triaged by the community provider and will be sub-contracted by LGT to provide this service. The RAS does not form part of this service specification or contract value. The RAS will offer additional referral management by actively encouraging high quality of information from referring GPs (including attaching photos), adhering to the SEL Treatment Access Policy and providing feedback to the referrer on the quality, suitability and destination of the referral. The RAS will actively mitigate against the lowering of referral thresholds in cases where the GP could reasonably be expected to manage the patient's condition in primary care. All referrals into the RAS will be triaged within two working days. The RAS will collect triage activity data to a level that enables local demand and educational needs to be identified and will actively seek to feed this information into ongoing educational programmes and the development of the service. B) Diagnostic support, advice and guidance. The service will offer a specialist Advice and Guidance service for GPs within the community. The provision of management plans will be an important part of the wider educational role of the service, aiming to build confidence and capacity within primary care. The service will work with the wider system to develop resources that support GPs to make an accurate diagnosis and implement a first line management plan for appropriate conditions. These resources will include clinical guidance/checklists, accessible signposting to existing resources such as the Primary Care Dermatology Society and a directory of local educational opportunities (see section below for more detail on education). The service will work with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) and wider Integrated Care System (ICS) to ensure that use of these resources becomes embedded within the referral optimisation process. The service will provide learning opportunities for healthcare professionals with sit in clinics being arranged. The service is to be considered as much a peer support service as a direct patient interfacing service. Feedback will be regularly collated from referrers and patients and gathered to optimise performance and outcomes. C) Management support and/ or treatment for a broad range of dermatological conditions. The service will provide consultation and treatment, delivered in primary/community care settings across Lewisham for dermatology patients whose treatment is outside the scope of what can be offered in primary care and who would otherwise have been referred to hospital. The provider will use a flexible approach to providing appointment capacity so that this sufficiently matches the demand for this service and supports patient choice. Depending on the level of demand, commissioners anticipate dedicated clinics in at least two premises within the ICB area that provide good accessibility for patients and facilitate patient choice. At this time it is recommended that the 2 sites will be The Waldron Health Centre and Rushey Green practice and both sites are currently being used by the current provider to deliver community dermatology clinics. Contract value Total indicative contract value per annum - £349,948 Total indicative contract value full term - £1,749,740 Contract Duration The contract will have an initial term of 3 years (36 months), followed by an optional extension of 2 years (24 months) If all available extension is taken up in full the contract will have a maximum duration of 5 years (60 months). Interested organisations must express an interest and submit a tender via Atamis e-tendering portal by the deadline stated in the Invitation to Tender documents. Bidders needs to register on Atamis if they are not registered already. This can be done by clicking the link below: https://atamis-1928.my.salesforce-sites.com/ProSpend__CS_ContractPage?SearchType=Projects&uid=a07Sr00000D7QscIAF&searchStr=C299107&sortStr=Recently+Published&page=1&filters=&County= Once registered, you can express an interest in this project by clicking the following the link to this specific project ; https://atamis-1928.my.salesforce-sites.com/ProSpend__CS_ContractPage?SearchType=Projects&uid=a07Sr00000D7QscIAF&searchStr=C299107&sortStr=Recently+Published&page=1&filters=&County= (Contract Reference: C299107). Please note that any submission of bids by any other means will not be considered.