PCD 1374 Selected Medical Practitioner

PCD  1374 Selected Medical Practitioner

This paper seeks approval for a upto 4 year single tender action (STA) for the provision of professional medical services in order to meet the requirements of the Police Pension Authority and Police Pension regulations. The estimated 4-year cost is £946,256 which can be met from within the existing MPS budget. 

The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime is recommended to:   

1. Approve a Single Tender Action (STA) with Professional Occupational Medical Services in providing the services of a Selected Medical Practitioner (SMP) for a further four years 

PART I - NON-CONFIDENTIAL FACTS AND ADVICE TO THE DMPC 

1. Introduction and background  

1. The current contract for the provision of the selected medical practitioner expires on 1 March 2023.  

2. Issues for consideration 

1. The services of a medical practitioner is required in order to meet the requirements of the Police Pension Authority and Police Pension regulations for independent recommendations in respect of ill health retirement, early payment of deferred pension on medical grounds, rejoining the police pension scheme and injury awards for officers and ex-officers. 

2. MPS report that there is a severely limited supply of suitably qualified providers for this service. National events to generate more market interest and understand supplier views were arranged but resulted in a lack of interest and providers stating that they would not be pursuing tender opportunities as they were unable to fulfill the requirements of the role – see Commercial section below for further detail.  

3. The proposal is for a upto 4 year single tender action to ensure continuity of supply. 

3. Financial Comments  

1. The estimated annual cost of the service is £236,564 which over the potential 4-year term of the single tender action would cost £946,256. The cost will be funded from within the existing MPS Human Resources budget. 

4. Legal Comments 

1. The Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime (“MOPAC”) is a contracting authority as defined in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (“the Regulations”). All awards of public contracts for goods and/or services valued at £213,477 or above shall be procured in accordance with the Regulations. This report confirms the value of the proposed contract exceeds this threshold.  

2. This report confirms it is believed no other SMP providers would wish to provide the services on the basis of a lack of interest to a previous prior information notice (PIN) published by Blue Light Commercial (BLC) in around November 2021 for a national contract. Given that previous PIN and subsequent failed market engagement exercise, both by BLC, took place almost one year ago Commercial Services has confirmed that there are no other providers in this market that could fulfil the MPS requirement.  

3. The award of contract through an STA is permitted within the Public Contract Regulations (PCR) 2015, Regulation 32(2)b(ii) which allows for the award of a contract by a negotiated procedure without prior publication; 

(b) where the works, supplies or services can be supplied only by a particular economic operator for any of the following reasons:— 

(i) the aim of the procurement is the creation or acquisition of a unique work of art or artistic performance, 

(ii) competition is absent for technical reasons, 

(iii) the protection of exclusive rights, including intellectual property rights . 

4. DLS assure that the proposal is compliant with the Public Contract Regulations. 

5. The MOPAC Scheme of Delegation and Consent provides the Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (“DMPC”) has delegated authority to approve:  

All contract exemptions for £100,000 or above (paragraph 4.13); and  

Business cases for revenue or capital expenditure of £500,000 and above (paragraph 4.8); and  

6. Paragraph 7.23 of the Scheme provides that the Director of Commercial Services has consent for the approval of the award of all contracts, with the exception of those called in through the agreed call in procedure. Paragraph 4.14 of the Scheme provides the DMPC reserves the right to call in any MPS proposal to award a contract for £500,000 or above. 

5. Commercial Issues  

1. In recognition of the limited supply of suitably qualified providers across the country the MPS worked with the national Blue Light Commercial (BLC) function, the College of Policing, NPCC and the National Police Federation.  BLC organised a national market engagement event, for November 2021. The purpose was to define the requirements, the feasibility of options and the appetite within the market. However due to lack of market/supplier interest the event was cancelled. 

2. Blue Light Commercial ran national focus sessions in November and December 2021 with a small number of potential providers. At these sessions, the few potential providers highlighted the workforce challenges and cited that they would not be pursuing tender opportunities as they were unable to fulfill the requirements of the role 

3. The MPS has assured that they will engage further with Blue Light Commercial to consider what sustainable, long term solutions can be found for this ongoing problem of viable supply choices.  MPS will feed in to Blue Light Commercial’s  work to put in place a National Framework agreement for all forces to call off from which should help to improve the market options. 

4. The MPS assure that the current provider does provide a value for money service as, very occasionally, an alternative provider has been used and the alternative provider was considerably more expensive than the current provider. 

6. GDPR and Data Privacy  

1. MOPAC will adhere to the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and ensure that any organisations who are commissioned to do work with or on behalf of MOPAC are fully compliant with the policy and understand their GDPR responsibilities.   

2. The MPS assure that this project does not use personally identifiable data of members of the public, so there are no GDPR issues to be considered.  

7. Equality Comments  

  MOPAC is required to comply with the public sector equality duty set out in section 149(1) of the Equality Act 2010. This requires MOPAC to have due regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations by reference to people with protected characteristics. The protected characteristics are: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation. 

8. The MPS assure that there are no significant equality or diversity implications arising from this process negating the requirement to present any mitigation. 

9. Background/supporting papers 

1. Appendix 1 MPS Report - Single Tender Action for the Selected Medical Practitioner (SMP)