Specialist digital team: deliver discovery and business case for regional Genomic IT architecture

Description

Summary of the work NW & NE & Y GMSA's require a team with knowledge of healthcare informatics to provide an interoperability/integration view of North of England and deliver a discovery report and a business case for investment. Expected Contract Length 4 Months Latest start date Tuesday 7 December 2021 Budget Range It is estimated the work can be delivered within the budget range of £150,000 to £250,000 (excluding VAT). We anticipate that this work has considerable market opportunity and Added Value Proposals are welcomed from suppliers to invest and work alongside the commissioner organisation up to matched funding. Why the Work is Being Done The Digital DNA project is being undertaken by the two GMSAs to identify and design an architecture and technology solutions to support a growing use of genomic medicine in the NHS; providing a simplified, integrated, scalable, secure and resilient landscape. The architecture will provide the ability to collaborate at the point of care with multi-region partners and clinical teams, to exploit the available datasets for the benefit of individual patients and to improve outcomes. This will enable nationwide realisation of NHSEI's vision for genomics to become a mainstream, high-volume diagnostic service for cancers and rare disease that can deliver effective personalised medicine as part of the standard of care. This diagnostic architecture will sit within a research ecosystem that will foster a culture of innovation in the field of genomics. Problem to Be Solved Aim of the project is to connect key stakeholder groups across the NW, NE & Yorkshire regions; • Primary and Secondary Care clinicians including improved quality of clinical description of patients, requesting test orders, receiving diagnostic results and integrated/shared clinical management of patients; • Oncologists and Pathologists requesting genomic test orders as part of a suite of diagnostic cancer tests; • Detailed system catalogue of all regional information systems relevant for electronic ordering and reporting, including planned changes. This should include: • Refresh systems review work previously conducted • Discovery and mapping of IT systems and infrastructure across specialties and geographies; • Mapping test ordering and reporting pathways to IT systems, data flows and infrastructure across the North; • Mapping of Information Governance, including but not limited to who are the IG leads, leadership on IG for groups of organisations, existing data sharing agreements; • Engagement with PPI, clinical and information governance leads; • Development of designs for architectural options; • Use case testing for clinical pathways demonstrating how options meet general requirements as well as geographical and system variations; o Whole Genome Sequencing (RD) o Familial hypercholesterolemia (RD) o Solid tumour (e.g. DYPD) o Haem-onc (e.g. ML or AL) Who Are the Users As a regional clinician I need to order a genomic test and received informed results and clinical advice effectively and efficiently, with single sign on. I need to be able to obtain clincial advice from clinical genetics experts without the need to refer patients to clinical genomics. Work Already Done NW GMSA - A high level requirement analysis and description of infrastructure / architecture was undertaken by IBM in 2019-20. NEY GMSA - Mapping of systems undertaken by regional care record services, such as the Yorkshire and The Humber Care Record and Great North Care Record. These are from 2018 and will need to be updated and extended to cover pathology systems. Existing Team Rebecca Gamble - NW GMSA Programme Manager Mark Hurrell - NEY GMSA Project Manager Andrew Michaelson - NEY GMSA Technical Lead Jan Taylor - NW GMSA Informatics Lead John Fraser - NEY GMSA Informatics Lead Current Phase Discovery Skills & Experience • Demonstrable experience providing consulting in digital healthcare at Exec level • At least 3 years recent experience designing informatic architectures at system scale • Demonstrable experience of successful delivery of investment cases within the NHS Nice to Haves Recognised and credible authority on healthcare informatics and focus on 'future health' issues Work Location Manchester; work across North of England Working Arrangments Work within office hours, with no requirement to be on site. Weekly progress meetings and monthly written highlight report. Deliverables 1.Map IT patient records and information management systems, integration engines, shared records, data flow 2.Map IG leads, data sharing agreements 3.Communications Materials 4.Interim Report (28-Feb-2022) summary a.systems, pathways and IG mapping b.requirements, future state design, likely funding requirements c.Key points of case, benefits and implementation plan 5.Full Report (31-Mar-2022) a.Detailed requirements and solution b.Costed business case for a regional architecture supporting relevant clinical pathways. c.Options appraisal of systems/applications d.Benefits e.High-level implementation plan, with regional ICSs and pathology network agreement Security Clearance n/a Additional T&Cs Standard Contract to be used. Payment Terms to be Monthly and to be agreed subject to the final pricing. No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 3 Proposal Criteria • Approach and methodology • Team structure • How the approach or solution meets your organisation’s policy or goal • Estimated timeframes for the work • Risks management • Value for money and Investment Opportunity Cultural Fit Criteria • Working as a team with commissioning organisation • Able to build trust and credibility • Open and transparent • Collaborative approach to decision making • Take responsibility for their work • Share knowledge and experience with other team members • Challenge the status quo • Deliver quality outputs and timely Payment Approach Fixed price Assessment Method • Case study • Work history • Reference • Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 55% Cultural fit 20% Price 25% Questions from Suppliers 1. 1. Can you please explain the technology objective for the outcome rather than NHS prior experience ? As per DOS5 framework, prior sector experience restricts fair bidding. 1. The supplier must be able to articulate a successful multi-organisation architecture design in a healthcare environment, demonstrating an understanding of potential barriers posed by this unique environment, including but not limited to national, regional and local information governance and issues encountered with interoperability/interfacing in the English NHS. We will therefore consider all relevant experiences from across all sectors. 2. Can you please why NHS prior experience is essential and how will this help non-incumbent player from bidding fairly ? The supplier must be able to articulate a successful multi-organisation architecture design in a healthcare environment, demonstrating an understanding of potential barriers posed by this unique environment, including but not limited to national, regional and local information governance and issues encountered with interoperability/interfacing in the English NHS. Where we have requested in Essential Skills and Experience: •Demonstrable experience of successful delivery of investment cases within the NHS, we will amend the requirement to exclude the "within NHS reference". 3. What is the timeline for the written proposals? The proposal is to be submitted with the response by 2-Dec-2021. The interim report is then due 28-Feb-2022. Final reports and business case due 31-Mar-2022. 4. In order to scale the amount of work required the existing documents will be needed: “NW GMSA – A high level requirement analysis and description of infrastructure / architecture” and ” NEY GMSA – Mapping of systems undertaken by regional care record services, such as the Yorkshire and The Humber Care Record and Great North Care Record”. Are these available? The documents are not available at this stage and we believe the contents are unlikely to add significant benefit to the required response for the current opportunity. Documents will be shared with a successful supplier. 5. Is the written proposal, for the 3 suppliers to be evaluated, expected at the same time as the DOS submission? (and if so how is this to be submitted) Yes, it is. We will supply separate details if this is unable with the submission. 6. Could you summarily list the stakeholder organisations and key professional groups who will need to be involved? This is not specifically defined and we are looking for a pan regional mapping, this would include: All major acute Trusts in each region, All district general hospitals, A number of GPs across the region, Pathology networks, Regional shared care records. 7. Can you confirm that professional documentation of existing systems and interoperability is all up-to-date and would be available to the successful vendor that does this work? Yes, I can confirm this. 8. For the three shortlisted vendors, could you kindly confirm that you will share the work that’s already been done, respectively by NW and NEY GMSAs, please? Information to be shared with successful supplier. 9. Is there an incumbent external service provider of these or related services, in any of the primary partners involved? There is no incumbent supplier. The project is to map extant systems, future data flows and IG across the regions.  There is no current regional genomics architecture.  This requires a design phase. 10. In “Problem to be solved” the requirement states one aim of the project is “to connect key stakeholder groups across the NW, NE & Yorkshire regions (including) Primary and Secondary Care clinicians”. Can you please clarify how Primary Care clinicians will be involved, eg via CSUs, CCGs, ICSs etc? We will need to address best routes for engagement as part of the project. Likely to be with a small number of stakeholders, including GPs themselves as purpose is to understand who supplies their IT systems and then discuss interoperability with their system suppliers e.g. Emis Health etc.  We will focus on specific clinical use cases to do this e.g. Familial hypercholesterolemia. 11. The timescales for a 7th Dec start-date seem very short, given the intent of completing an appraisal of 3 potential vendors. Could you please set out in more detail how this will be possible? Yes Apologies. We anticipate suppliers will provide enough detail in initial response to enable shortlisting of up to three suppliers. A dedicated assessment team is in place to engage with suppliers who will need to provide a short turn around to any clarifications and requests for more detail.  We will engage with suppliers in a meeting format where possible to elicit further detail. We are prepared to push back the start date to enable further clarifications and evaluation. This will though condense the time to complete the report which must be by the 31-March-2022. 12. Demonstrable experience providing consulting in digital healthcare at Exec level: Do you need 1 example (as per the earlier instructions), or more? Should the examples only be with NHS organisations or can they also be providing consulting services for international health systems? If you have 1 example that is fine and if you have more than one example that is fine as well. We would request that you limit these examples to a maximum of 5 examples though please per bidder. As per a previous clarification we will accept examples from other sectors and indeed international examples with similar synergies. NHS examples would also be acceptable if these are relevant. 13. Further to the above questions regarding submitting a proposal, please could you indicate how to submit the proposal, as at the moment the only response we can make is answers to the initial questions and then submit – there doesn’t appear to be a facility/function to upload or add a proposal as requested. Thank you. We did intend to discuss this at a webinar tomorrow, however, we have decided not to hold this webinar due to the current questions position, busy diaries and holidays in the team. 14. Further to the above questions regarding submitting a proposal, please could you indicate how to submit the proposal, as at the moment the only response we can make is answers to the initial questions and then submit – there doesn’t appear to be a facility/function to upload or add a proposal as requested. Thank you. Part 2Due to the limitations of submitting written proposals together with responses through the portal, bidders are requested to submit through the portal together with written proposals via email. Please mark all emails in the header, "DOS Submission - Genomics Opportunity". Please keep all emails below 15mb and provide zipped files if including a number of documents/case studies. We will acknowledge all emails and happy if you want to also request a read receipt. Responses to be sent to mark.holmes@mft.nhs.uk before Midnight on the 2nd December. Thank you. 15. At least 3 years recent experience designing informatic architectures at system scale: Does this need to be 1 example or several? Should examples only be with NHS organisations or can they be with international healthcare organisations also? Last, you mention designing informatic architectures, not specifying healthcare. Can examples also be included from other industries, or from government/public sector work outside healthcare? If you have 1 example that is fine and if you have more than one example that is fine as well. We would request that you limit these examples to a maximum of 5 examples though please per bidder. As per a previous clarification we will accept examples from other sectors, industries and government/public sector and indeed international examples with similar synergies. NHS examples would also be acceptable if these are relevant. 16. Could you please explain how we can physically submit our proposal, via the DOS portal? The only available way of imparting any information to you appears to be to answer, by evidenced case study examples, how we can fulfil the essential and nice-to-have skills and experience. Is there a facility to upload a document, in support of our evidenced case studies? Due to the limitations of submitting written proposals together with responses through the portal, bidders are requested to submit through the portal together with written proposals via email. Please mark all emails in the header, "DOS Submission - Genomics Opportunity". Please keep all emails below 15mb and provide zipped files if including a number of documents/case studies. We will acknowledge all emails and happy if you want to also request a read receipt. Responses to be sent to mark.holmes@mft.nhs.uk before Midnight on the 2nd December. Thank you and I have extended my mailbox. 17. Demonstrable experience of successful delivery of investment cases within the NHS:Does this need to be 1 example or several? Also, please define what you consider successful delivery of investment cases within the NHS in this context: would this include SOC only, or should it include seeing a case through from SOC to OBC and FBC and/or through to successful implementation? 1 example is acceptable, an indication of more if there are any is helpful.  We are looking for a demonstrable track record.  Supplier should articulate level of case delivered, be it SOC, OBC or FBC. Success in this case is delivering a good quality business case, accepted by customers/commissioners of the work, not necessarily delivery of implementation. 18. Recognised and credible authority on healthcare informatics and focus on ‘future health’ issues: What is your working definition of ‘recognised and credible authority’? E.g. would this need to include academic achievements (eg publications in peer review journals), or acting as a speaker and publisher in recognised Healthcare/NHS? Defined as demonstrable evidence of positive impact on healthcare IT. Academic publications alone and not considered to meet this standard.  Examples of practical output addressing issues are.  E.g. role in implementing new products/systems in healthcare systems; successful innovation in informatics; delivery of key strategic work adopted by healthcare systems as policy. 19. For the purposes of our bid, could you kindly confirm: Your role and job title within the Manchester University Trust, to whom our bid is to be sent. Any format required for proposals, if you have one. Confirm that the evaluation criteria listed in the DOS advertisement will remain the only criteria used for assessing proposals. In the spirit of openness and transparency, notwithstanding the very fast procurement timetable, that the process is truly level for all vendors. The process for your and your colleagues’ evaluation is in place, to be completed by Mon 6th December. The bid should be sent to the email address with the Genomics header. It will be evaluated by the team in the document, for ease "To Whom It May Concern" is sufficient. No format as we are interested to see bidder styles, but please avoid size 10 font or smaller and avoid lots of padding, non-relevant information. The evaluation criteria is as listed. The process is truly level for all bidders. We will be ready to evaluate and shortlist from 3/12/21 to 6/12/21. We may though have been overly optimistic to commence on the 7/12/21. See next question/answer. 20. The process for your and your colleagues’ evaluation is in place, to be completed by Mon 6th December. The procurement practice is being waived for this procurement, of allowing a post-award “cooling-off” period to clarify the outcome. If bids are very close or equal and or require further clarification(s) this will delay our decision. We may therefore seek further information, a short presentation, and best and final offers in the event of a tie. We do want to kick off before Christmas because of the short timescales to prepare and deliver the requirements. If the final pricing is below the £189k threshold then we will likely not hold a cooling off period. If the winning price is above the threshold then we will. That said we will also likely need 2 weeks to agree/sign contracts. 21. Will the contract start date still be the 7th Dec 2021? If we have further clarifications etc as described above + cooling off periods + delays to contract agreements/signature this will delay the start date, possibly it will now be during w/c 19/12/21. Sorry. We do want to give the winning bidder opportunity to mobilise and plan pre-Xmas and to therefore hit the ground running in the New Year. Final Report must be the end of March to achieve our deadlines.