A document has been published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to support stakeholders when responding to their supplementary consultation on the detail of proposals for regulations for the Provider Selection Regime.
The Health and Care Bill currently before Parliament proposes that new regulations may make provisions in relation to the arrangement of healthcare services in England. This is known as the Provider Selection Regime.
The Provider Selection Regime will be a new set of rules for arranging healthcare services, which is intended to give decision makers a flexible, proportionate decision-making process for selecting providers to deliver healthcare services to the public. It will be introduced via the forthcoming Health and Care Bill currently before Parliament (subject to Parliament passing the bill, and any changes that may arise from that process).
The Provider Selection Regime would replace the existing procurement rules for healthcare services. The aim of the Provider Selection Regime is to make it easier to integrate services and enhance collaboration, and to remove the rigidity associated with the current procurement rules, and the related bureaucracy and cost. However, under the Provider Selection Regime, the competitive tendering of health services can continue to have a role where this is in the best interests of patients, taxpayers, and the population.
The Provider Selection Regime will seek to ensure that decisions about who provides healthcare services are:
The Provider Selection Regime is intended to fit with the integrated, collaborative approach to healthcare commissioning being established in the Health and Care Bill by providing a decision-making process that makes space for collaboration to happen and that ensures all decisions about how healthcare is arranged are made in the best interests of patients, taxpayers, and the population.
The Provider Selection Regime is intended to give decision-makers flexibility on how to select providers of healthcare services. The regime is intended to make it straightforward for systems to continue with existing service provision where the arrangements are working well and there is no value for the patients, taxpayers, and population in seeking an alternative provider. And, where there is a need to consider making changes to service provision, it will provide a sensible, transparent, and proportionate process for decision-making that includes the option of competitive tendering as a tool decision-makers can use.
You can read more about it here
