Memorandum by Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust
Non-Clinical Support Services Division (PS 42)
Our Trust has recently changed from contracted
services to managing the services in house. There are two hospitals
within the Trust, Bradford Royal Infirmary and St Lukes Hospital.
Catering services at both hospitals were out sourced with Bateman,
now Medirest, and portering and some domestic services at St Lukes
hospital were out sourced with Initial Services. We also had some
in house domestic services.
It was agreed in June 2000 to re-tender the
services and let a combined Hotel Services Contract at St Lukes
Hospital and a catering contract at Bradford Royal Infirmary.
However due to some internal changes it was agreed by the Board
in December 2000 that, while we will continue the process of tendering
for St Lukes Hospital, Bradford Royal Infirmary's catering services
would lapse with the contractor at the end of May 2001 and return
to an in house service until alternative service provision could
be agreed.
A paper is attached that the Director of Operations
put together for the Trust Board, Company B was the in house team.
HOTEL SERVICES CONTRACT—ST LUKE'S HOSPITAL
INTRODUCTION
The Hotel Services contract for St Luke's Hospital
is currently provided by a combination of in-house and external
contracts.
The current contracts come to an end on 31 May
2001. It is, therefore, intended to reshape the Hotel Services
provision at St Luke's Hospital, taking into account the issues
raised by the NHS Plan eg 24-hour catering, national menu and
ward housekeeping.
This paper identifies the process adopted and
the rationale taken to enable a recommendation to be presented
to the Trust Board.
APPROACH AND
METHODOLOGY
The Trust advertised in the Overseas Journal
of the European Union seeking expressions of interest from potential
tenderers. Five expressions of interest were received: Initial
Hospital Services, ISS Mediclean, Medirest Healthcare, Sodexho
and In-House Services at Bradford Hospitals NHS Trust. All five
met the short-listing criteria outlined in Appendix 1 and were
invited to tender.
During the tendering period the Evaluation Panel
(Appendix 2) visited sites currently managed by each of the short-listed
tenders. The purpose of these visits was two-fold. Firstly, to
see first hand the quality of service provision and, secondly,
to discuss with Trust Senior Managers their experiences of the
Contractors in terms of flexibility, responsiveness, approachability,
acceptance of new innovative ideas. The information obtained formed
part of the final evaluation process.
EVALUATION OF
TENDERS
The panel evaluated the tenders using two distinct
areas:
FINANCIAL
The financial comparison of the tenders is shown
in the table below. The cost of the current contracted services
is £2.005m per annum:
| Company | Tender Price £000
| Rank Order |
| A | 1.818 |
1 |
| B | 2.036 |
2 |
| C | 2.096 |
3 |
| D | 2.217 |
4 |
| E | 2.279 |
5 |
The evaluation team considered that there was a fundamental
problem with the tendered cost of Tender A. They had incorporated
the ward hostess duties into Cleaning Service rosters. This means
that they envisaged that the Ward Cleaner would also undertake
the role of the Ward Housekeeper. Not only is this contrary to
the NHS Plan but the external advisor for the cleaning service
element of the contract was clear that Tender A input hours were
insufficient to meet the specification requirement, ie 17 whole
time equivalents per week, less than the next lowest tender (Tender
B) and 23 whole time equivalents below the average total staffing
of the five tenderers.
The company was offered the opportunity to review their staffing
levels as the evaluation team considered that this was an accidental
error on their part. They have, however, stated that they consider
the submitted levels to be adequate.
The evaluation team did not consider that Tender A could
meet the stringent standards or duties required in the cleaning
services specification with the staffing levels quoted and an
adjustment of around £250k per annum would be needed to raise
their staffing to an appropriate level.
NON-FINANCIAL
The non-financial elements of the evaluation are listed below:
1. General Service Issues.
3. Service Delivery Proposals—Catering Services.
4. Service Delivery Proposals—Cleaning Services.
5. Service Delivery Proposals—Portering Services.
6. Quality Assurance Proposals.
Each tender was evaluated against the above elements and
scored accordingly. The table below gives the overall scores and
ranking:
| Company | Percentage
| Rank |
| B | 94.23 |
1 |
| E | 88.35 |
2 |
| C | 86.17 |
3 |
| D | 80.14 |
4 |
| A | 75.27 |
5 |
CONCLUSIONS
Whilst Tenderer A offers the lowest tendered price it is
considered unacceptable as:
1. It is the lowest ranked non-financial bid.
2. The tender fails to meet the specification in respect
of providing realistic staffing levels.
Tenderer C offers the third lowest price and is also third
in non-financial elements. The company scored very poorly during
the site visit (PEAT Team assessment of 1 putting them in the
red light category.).
Tenderer E provided a comprehensive and well structured tender
but are ranked fifth in financial terms.
Tenderer D was discounted as they were placed fourth in both
financial and non-financial elements.
Tenderer B are ranked second in financial terms but ranked
first in non-financial elements having submitted a very comprehensive
and well structured bid. When considered against the background
of staffing omissions of Tenderer A the Tenderer B bid could technically
be considered lowest in practice. This bid included £59k
per annum for the introduction of Ward Housekeepers at St Luke's
Hospital.
It is recommended to the Trust Board that the tender for
Hotel Services at St Luke's Hospital is awarded to Tenderer B
for a period of five years on the basis that it offers best overall
value in respect of technical and financial compliance.
The Trust Board is asked to ratify this recommendation.
April 2000
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