CWC22167 Tuberculosis Diagnosis and Treatment Service

Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bacteria (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) that most often affects the lungs. It is an infectious disease that is treatable and curable but continues to be a major public health issue associated with significant morbidity, mortality and costs.

Active TB can be difficult to detect early because symptoms (such as cough, fever, night sweats, or weight loss) can be mild for many months. This can result in delays in diagnosis and onward to transmission to others. People with active TB can infect 5–15 other people through close contact over the course of a year. TB treatment (care and medication) is available free to all those living in England irrespective of residency or migration status including failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants.

Public Health Team currently commissions the city’s TB service to diagnose and treat patients with uncomplicated TB, to deliver specialist support in the management of TB through assessment, investigation, and diagnosis, contact tracing, promoting the completion of treatment through strategies including Directly Observed Therapy (DOT), offering health promotion programmes, and supporting UKHSA with potentially complex cases or outbreaks.

The service will

-work in partnership with GPs and other practice team members, hospital consultants, prison healthcare teams, religious and cultural establishments, voluntary and statutory groups, patients and their carers to promote joint working for patients.

-ensure patients receive holistic assessment and individualised care, which enable the management of their specific condition in the community setting and in turn prevent unnecessary admission to hospital and maximise patient independence.

-provide consistently high-quality professional nursing care to patients in Wolverhampton.

-control the spread of TB through early diagnosis, prompt referral and efficient, quality treatment.

-improve the level of understanding of the disease and its symptoms by both healthcare professionals and the community, in order to reduce the delays in diagnosis and avoid misdiagnosis.

Use of the negotiated procedure without prior publication 32(1) In the specific cases and circumstances laid down in this regulation, contracting authorities may award public contracts by a negotiated procedure without prior publication. General grounds

(b) where the works, supplies or services can be supplied only by a particular economic

Operator.

The service falls under the Light Touch Regime (Miscellaneous health services), processed via direct award, and is in accordance with the Public Contract Regulations 2015.