£800m tender launched for NHS digital solutions framework

An £800 million tender for the provision of digital solutions for NHS Digital and social care has been launched.

The tender, managed by Crown Commercial Service (CCS), covers the provision of digital outcomes and supporting services for NHS Digital and other public sector health and social care bodies.

The framework is intended to address the evolving technical “stacks” associated within the different pillars of NHS Digital, including platforms and infrastructure; product development; and data services.

Up to 12 suppliers will be chosen for the framework and will work with NHS Digital to develop strategic relationships to “encourage suppliers to improve and innovate on their delivery of services”, according to the tender.

Successful suppliers will be required to provide DevOps, support for ongoing live services; digital definition services; build and transition; end-to-end development; and data management services.

End-to-end services should have “the ability to combine the full set of agile phases of discovery through to live”.

Data management services will be “primarily targeted at building, enhancing and maintaining data assets, migrating data from one system to another and analysis and reporting from such data assets”.

“Crown Commercial Service, as the authority, intends to put in place an agreement for the provision of digital capability for health for use by NHS Digital and other public sector health and social care bodies for the provision of digital outcomes and supporting services,” the tender states.

“The agreement is being developed with NHS Digital as the operator, who requires digital capability to meet specific needs of the health and social care sector. NHS Digital requires suppliers to invest in understanding their specific organisational needs and to bespoke delivery of their services to meet requirements.”

Development of digital services will be expected to follow Government Digital Service (GDS) requirements, beginning at discovery before moving onto alpha and beta testing.

The contract will last for a period of four years with no option to renew.

The tender is open for applications until 3pm on 24 September 2020.