Routine Community Age-Related Hearing Loss Services

Services are required to cover the following scope:

• Adults aged over 55 years who are registered with a GP in Devon
• Experiencing routine, age-related hearing loss without evidence of additional complexities falling under the exclusion criteria set out in the service specification
• Services to be delivered from agreed locations within Devon or on a domiciliary basis within the county - the ICB will not pay for delivery from locations that have not be authorised for service delivery and there is no capital funding available as part of this procurement.
• Providers may express an interest in delivery across the County or from specific localities
• Service users referred by their GP or via self-referral, where initial screening indicates no complexities and/ or contraindications present

Requirements:

• Practitioners to have the professional accreditation, skills and competencies to carry out the requested assessment
• Delivery in line with NICE, BAA, BHSA and other relevant guidance as set out in the service specification
• IQIPS accreditation, or able to evidence engagement with UKAS to begin the accreditation process and a clear plan for achieving accreditation by no later than 31/3/2026.
• Professional, public and employer's indemnity arrangements in place along with clinical negligence cover
• Ability to accommodate services user who have sight loss, learning disabilities, require domiciliary care, require translation services.
• To have appropriate patient experience measures and complaints procedures in place and evidence how learning from these is applied.
• Able to comply with specified ICB with KPI and Quality reporting requirements and to upload data in line with required national datasets (including DM01) - Data collections and data sets - NHS England Digital

Payment will be on an activity basis with no guaranteed volumes/ minimum spend. Patients will be able to choose which contracted provider they wish to attend and referrals will either be from GPs using ERS or self-referral.

The NHS Standard Contract will be used for this service.

At this stage it is anticipated contracts would be issued for 3 years, with optional extensions covering a further 2 years. Additional information: Any providers interested in this opportunity should contact d-icb.contracting@nhs.net to request further information and an engagement questionnaire.

Further information, including the full service specification and local pricing will be supplied.

The engagement questionnaire is being used to help establish the number of interested providers, the localities providers would be interested in covering and to inform the most appropriate procurement approach.