Our Programme – Contestable Market
Deriving maximum benefit from the newly contestable NHS market
Providers and commissioners are coming to terms with unprecedented levels of competition. NHS Trusts, PCT provider arms and general practices are not only competing with each other but also with organisations from the private sector, social enterprise and the charities. At the same time Primary Care Trusts are dealing with the Framework for External Support to Commissioners (FESC) which has introduced private sector organisations into the field of commissioning publicly funded healthcare.
These developments present both opportunities and threats. The contestable market programme has been developed to provide members with a comprehensive understanding of the legal and policy framework in which they will have to work. There are three main themes to the programme; the policy, the law and the market:
The contestable market programme is designed to deliver value in a number of ways:
- Network wide legal seminars addressing issues such as:
- Procurement law
- Consultation obligations
- Employment issues such as TUPE and retention of employment
- Business models for partnerships between NHS bodies and others
- Consultant chambers
- Social enterprise models
- Franchising
- Clinical liability in a contestable market
- Developing legally binding contracts for clinical services
- Flexibilities in the private patient funding cap for Foundation Trusts
Legal sessions have been developed and delivered with legal health specialists such as Beachcroft LLP and Hempsons LLP.
- Workshops with specific trusts and health communities. These are delivered over two separate half-day sessions
- Working with executive teams to provide a legal, policy and market intelligence context
- Applying that knowledge to local issues and services with the aim of developing sound corporate strategies
- Bespoke Projects
- Designing new service models which take into account opportunities for partnership and innovative funding models
- Market surveys to identify potential commercial partners and emerging service models
- Market testing to strengthen the thinking around planned procurements and facilitate a strong field of bidders
- Working on secondment to a FESC organisation to allow cross pollination of ideas between the NHS and independent sector
- Template contracts
- NHS Elect has brokered the shared funding of contracts between NHS Trusts and Consultant LLPs and for contracts between GP social enterprises, PCTs and the acute Trusts which provide clinical governance to those services. These contracts are available to NHS Elect members in a template format. This significantly reduces the legal costs associated these developments.
- A resource library is available in the Members’ Area. This includes:
- Policy and legal documents is available to members for local use
- Case studies
This area of work is lead by Jim Timpson. For more information please contact Jim