Access to Palliative and End-of-Life Care Medicines Through Community Pharmacies in North East London - Market Engagement

North East London Integrated Care Board (NEL ICB) are seeking to commission Service Providers within NEL to provide access to palliative end-of-life care (PEoLC) medicines to patients in the community in North East London. The main service outcome will be to facilitate easy and timely access to PEoLC medicines, enabling patients to achieve good symptom control. It is expected that the service provider will:

• Maintain a specific stock of PEoLC medicines to ensure timely supply for patients.
• Support access to PEoLC medicines both in and out of hours.
• Provide information and advice relating to the use of EoLC medicines to family members/ carers/ healthcare professionals.
• Provide flexible options for the collection or delivery of PEoLC medicines for out of hours service provision. NEL ICB is seeking providers who will provide this service within their usual working hours. It is also expected that the provider will be able to support out-of-hours (OOH) service provisions; defined as hours outside their normal operating times. The provision for OOHs service would either be by participating in a rota system co-ordinated by NEL ICB across NEL or this will be delivered through a single provider. The minimum requirement (weeks per year as part of the rota) to be determined depending on the responses received from the expression of interest. To assist the Commissioners with testing its assumptions and proposed service requirements, a market engagement feedback questionnaire has been developed to obtain understanding of the market's feedback and interest on the following: Outline of service requirements and KPI's
• Indication on provider to participate in OOHs service provision
• timescales for procurement and mobilisation of the new contract
• proposed contract duration and financial model