Supporting Equitable Access/APMS tenders for primary care services
Acton Shapiro has been supporting bids for APMS and Out Of Hours contracts by GPs and a range of commercial organisations for a number of years.  Over the last 12 months we have helped provider organisations assemble tender materials for more than 25 bids as part of the Equitable Access in Primary Medical Services (EAPMS) and related competitive bidding processes.  To date, 16 of these have resulted in our client achieving Preferred Bidder status, including:
  • 8 GP-Led Health Centres
  • 7 GP Practices for under-doctored areas
  • 1 Urgent Care Centre.

Clients include the Redbank Group Practice (Bury, Manchester), Danum Medical Services (Doncaster GPs), Harness GP Co-Operative (Brent GPs), Novus Health (Wakefield GPs) and a variety of Assura Group LLPs across the country.

For our clients, we have assisted with:

  • Managing all aspects of the tendering process including the Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ) and Invitation to Tender (ITT)
  • Project planning
  • Workforce/clinical policy development (clinical governance, Health and Safety)
  • Workforce modelling
  • Financial costing/modelling and profit forecasting
  • Interview preparation
  • Preferred bidder/contract negotiations
  • Service implementation and mobilisation
  • Risk analyses
  • Support in meeting contract requirements and quality standards.

Acton Shapiro can provide support in all elements of the tendering process, from company formation to implementation of the service.  To date we have been the lead consultants on 7 successful bids nationwide.  As a result of our success in tendering for these contracts, we have often been asked to implement APMS contracts in partnership with our client provider companies and hope to be directly involved in working on at least 10 new Equitable Access ["Darzi Centre"] projects during 2009 - a substantial proportion of all the tenders that have been offered nationally.  Please click here for more details on this.

Where necessary, we can assist clients with company formation. This has included helping with development of a social enterprise in the form of a Community Interest Company (CIC) to bid for local services, which is an attractive model of provision to many PCTs.  We have specialist knowledge in such areas as:

  • Legal structure (Limited Company, Limited Liability Partnership, Social Enterprise etc.)
  • Organisational structures (medical/organisational leadership arrangements etc.)
  • Financial issues (including pension arrangements for staff and securing grants)
  • Business planning.

Please contact us to see how we can help you devise new and exciting models of provision for your community and then turn them into a reality.


Case Study: The Redbank Group Practice

The Redbank Group Practice in Bury, Manchester, decided to move into a new LIFT building with two other practices.  The PCT subsequently decided to procure a new GP practice from the same site, increasing the number of practices to 4.  Acton Shapiro worked with the Redbank Group to devise a new entity called the ‘Radcliffe LIFT Consortium’ or RLC Surgery, a partnership between the three existing practices in the building and other community partners.  We helped the RLC develop a nurse-led model of provision, which complements existing services in the building, is more cost-effective than traditional GP-led models of care and will offer a more targeted service for patients in the local community.  Please see www.therlc.co.uk for more information.