Provider Selection Regime – are you preparing your annual summary?
We are now over 6 months since the introduction of the Provider Selection Regime. Relevant Authorities are getting to grips with the requirements of the PSR, and are applying the decision making processes and publishing notices etc to award contracts. But how many are thinking about the annual summary that will need to be published? Granted, the annual summary does not need to be published until mid 2025 (see below), but that date will be here before we know it, and the Procurement Act is likely to cause a significant distraction come October 2024. So, have you processes in place to capture the required information as it is not something you want to be leaving to the last minute to produce.
The first annual summary will cover the period between 1/1/24 and 31/3/25, and the NHS England statutory guidance sets out that it is expected to be published no later than six months following the end of 2024/25 financial year.
Regulation 25 of the PSR Regulations sets out what must be published:
A relevant authority must publish online, on a publicly available website accessible free of charge, an annual summary of its contracting activity for the provision of relevant health care services. The annual summary must include—
(a) the number of contracts awarded in the year to which the summary relates where Direct Award Process A, Direct Award Process B or Direct Award Process C was followed;
(b) the number of contracts awarded in the year to which the summary relates where the Most Suitable Provider Process was followed;
(c) the number of contracts awarded in the year to which the summary relates where the Competitive Process was followed;
(d) the number of framework agreements concluded in the year to which the summary relates;
(e) the number of contracts awarded based on a framework agreement in the year to which the summary relates;
(f) the number of contracts awarded and modifications made in reliance on regulation 14 (urgent award or modification) in the year to which the summary relates;
(g) the number of new providers to whom a contract was awarded in the year to which the summary relates;
(h) the number of providers who held a contract in the previous year but no longer hold any contracts in the year to which the summary relates;
(i) the number of written representations made in accordance with regulation 12(3) and received during standstill periods which ended in the year to which the summary relates and a summary of the nature and impact of those representations.
The NHS England statutory guidance further sets out that relevant authorities are expected to publish:
· total number of providers the relevant authority is currently contracted with
· details of any reviews by the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel:
· number of requests for consideration received by the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel
· number of requests accepted and rejected by the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel for consideration
· number of times where the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel advised the relevant authority to re-run or go back to an earlier step in a provider selection process under the PSR, and the number of times the advice was followed.
The required information will be much easier to collect as the year progresses, rather than trying to pull this together next year looking back on all your PSR decisions.
How we can help?
Working alongside the NHS England policy team and NHS England legal team, Hempsons has advised on the development of the PSR. This work has included advising on the PSR Regulations themselves (inputting into the drafting of the Regulations, the drafting of which was led by DHSC), and the development of the statutory guidance and the toolkits developed by NHS England to support the introduction of the PSR. Hempsons is therefore well placed to advise on the implications of this new regime for securing the provision of health care services.
If you would like to discuss the requirements of the PSR, please get in touch with our specialist procurement law team.