Perinatal Immunisation Services in Dorset

This notice is placed to set out NHS England South West's (the Commissioner's) intention to follow the Most Suitable Provider Process.

NHS England South West is commissioning Perinatal Immunisation Services within Dorset.

Perinatal Immunisation Services being commissioned include Pertussis, Flu and COVID-19 vaccinations for pregnant women, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccinations for newborn infants, and the roll out of the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccination programme for pregnant woman over 28 Weeks.

The Commissioner is seeking a provider/s who are suitable and capable to continue the delivery of this work.

The aim of Perinatal Immunisation Services is to offer vaccination to pregnant women alongside existing planned antenatal appointments, to facilitate improvement of vaccinations offered to newborn infants on a targeted basis (BCG, Hep B as required), to improve data quality, improve uptake and reduce inequalities in access to immunisations across the perinatal pathway. To support the understanding of requirement, the service specifications and sample reporting requirements relating to the individual vaccination programmes have been provided in Atamis.

To co-ordinate delivery of the improvement programme in the system of Dorset, in partnership with the two maternity providers. The programme seeks to

• Increase uptake of maternal vaccinations
• Improve timeliness of the BCG vaccination programme
• Improve quality of data on uptake and inequalities
• Take steps to address inequalities in accessing these programmes

Further information on this can be found in the Transformation funding outcomes provided in Atamis.

The contract will commence on 1st September 2025, the contract term will be 3 years with a 2 year optional extension.

No changes are foreseen across the life of the contract, other than demographic changes, and increase in income should uptake and activity increase.

We do not believe that TUPE would apply in this award.

The total contract value will be £130,000 per annum plus variable income arising from vaccinations administered for RSV, pertussis and flu. At present this is estimated to be in the region of £120,000 per annum.

The provider must have experience of delivering services within perinatal immunisation services in, around and relevant to and have established links and networks to enable collaborative working and integrated delivery.

The Provider must be able to mobilise by the contract start date.

Services will be contracted using the latest version of the NHS Standard Contract.

This exercise is being carried out by NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW) on behalf of the Commissioner.