Running an off catalogue competition

You will already have identified suppliers who fulfil your requirements. The first step is to notify them that you want to begin a procurement exercise.

What you need to do:

• create a notice of the procurement intention
• contact the suppliers you wish to compete by email and attach the notice

Note

You can find the supplier's contact email addresses on the Buying Catalogue. Once on the Buying Catalogue website select:

• browse catalogue solutions
• search for your supplier
• select supplier details and view their contact details

You will enter a period of negotiation with suppliers. They will compete to offer you solutions. The solutions will best meet your requirements at an agreeable price.

This is where you can:

• ask suppliers for a demonstration of their solution (this is not mandatory)
• negotiate a price for the solution and services

Asking suppliers for a demo of their solutions provides:

• an opportunity to see the solution
• find out more about development plans for the solution

If you choose to include a product demonstration as a condition of procurement, you must:

• notify prospective suppliers in the notification and/or invitation to tender documents

Note

We do not know how flexible suppliers will be in terms of negotiation when procuring a foundation system. The more suppliers you invite to bid the more scope there is for negotiation.

Suppliers have indicated to us they may be willing to work with ICBs/ICSs to address an overspend position against the allocation.

The next step is to create the formal invitation to compete. 

This must include:

• your requirements (capabilities) and evaluation criteria including weightings
• details of whether the competition is one or two stages

Competition stages:

• one stage > no demo of tenders and solutions takes place
• two stages > suppliers are invited to present their tenders and solutions

You can find the evaluation criteria for assessing tenders in Schedule 2.1 of the contracting vehicle agreement. This includes advice on which criteria need to be included in invitations to tender.

You should be aware that some suppliers find how weighting percentages are allocated unfair. They might see it as an indication that you intend to re-procure from your existing supplier. For example, if an ICB applies a high percentage against migration/transition. This might indicate a preference for avoiding supplier change.

ICBs should be diligent about how they weight the individual evaluation criteria. This can avoid challenges from suppliers about decisions to award a contract to a competitor. This is to ensure that a transparent and fair competition is run.

You can include this in a draft call off order form to describe:

• your implementation plans
• objectives
• any special requirements associated with the procurement

There are various reasons why you might want to include this information, such as:

• the necessity to maintain current level of cross estate interoperability

You are now ready to issue the invitation to compete to the selected suppliers. This can also include the draft call-off order form.

It is advisable that you clearly indicate:

• a response deadline
• any arrangements for dealing with valid questions from suppliers

You must ensure full disclosure. All answers to suppliers' questions must be made available to all suppliers invited.

Evaluate responses and apply scoring

The suppliers will send in their final responses by the deadline. These will need evaluating by your evaluation panel.  

Decide your evaluation criteria and weighting percentages for the criteria you will be evaluating:

• Price, quality, delivery timescales, technical merit, target performance indicators, transition or migration support weighting across all criteria must add up to 90% 
• Social value weighting must be 10%

These may also be shown in the invitation to tender document you should already have received. 

Each response will then be allocated a score based on your list of requirements. 

Evaluation panel

It is up to you to decide how to structure your evaluation panel. We recommend that panels include representatives from both the ICB and your practices. The result of this process will provide you with your winning supplier. 

Note

ICBs now run more complex procurements. GP practices may worry that they are not able to influence procurement decisions. How you structure your procurement may help overcome this. For example, if you are procuring at the primary care network (PCN) level. Public Contracts Regulations 2015 requires legitimate competitive tendering by public sector organisations. You would have engaged with your GP practices. You will address their needs when selecting solutions. You should also include them on your panel.

You can now prepare an award notice to send to the supplier with the winning tender bid. You can also issue notices and feedback to all unsuccessful bidders.

Issue the award notice to the winning supplier along with the final call off order form.