PIN for Community Dermatology Service in West Berkshire

The following notice is a PIN notice only and is being placed to alert providers of a potential up-coming procurement exercise. Any values and timescales stated within this PIN notice are for guideline purposes only and should not be taken as a guarantee.

The NHS Berkshire West Clinical Commissioning Group Federation is considering its options for commissioning community dermatology services. This would be a primary care based service in the community, providing the following elements:

• Initial assessment and triage; • Diagnosis, management and follow up (including prescribing via FP10 prescriptions when appropriate; investigations and a diagnostic biopsy service); • Referral for opinion.

Exclusion criteria for the Service are: • Referrals for Cancer 2 week wait; • As recommended by the British Association of Dermatologists paper Guidance for commissioning Dermatology Services, the following conditions will not be suitable to for this Service and will be triaged to secondary care:

o High Risk Basal Cell Carcinomas as mentioned in the NICE Improving Outcomes Guidance for skin cancers; o Care of complex patients requiring geneticists, rheumatologists, or gynaecologists; o Care of sick patients with skin disease or failure; o Laser clinics, phototherapy, iontophoresis, wound care and other day treatments; o Day case infusion of disease modifying drugs; o Investigation of cutaneous allergy; o Clinical research and therapeutic trials; o Skin cancer screening for transplant patients.

The estimated contract value is £72,000 across the whole of west Berkshire, although the CCGs are considering a number of different contracting routes including AQP and framework agreements.

If your organisation would be interested in providing such a service, please confirm by email to mstanbrook@nhs.net answering briefly the following questions:

1) Whether you have currently or previously provided such a service (or similar) – if so where? 2) Do you have premises currently available from which to run the service, and if so where are these? 3) What are your qualifications to provide this service?

Please note that the above questions are for information only and will be used to assist the CCGs in deciding how best to proceed. They will not be used as any kind of assessment of your organisation’s capability nor have any impact on your future participation in any procurement process that might subsequently be undertaken.

The closing date for expressing interest is 5pm on the 15th February 2016.

Additional information: The closing date for expressing interest is 5pm on the 15th February 2016.