ShropDoc decision - Shropshire councillors back call for health bosses to stop contract process

Earlier this month NHS Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin confirmed it had selected a preferred bidder for its out of hours GP services.

The service has been provided by the not-for-profit organisation ShropDoc for a number of years.

The preferred bidder was confirmed as the company Medvivo - although the process has not yet been completed because the decision has been challenged.

County health bosses have defended the decision, saying the move is not about cost cutting, and that face-to-face appointments will still take place.

But the move has been met with concern from campaigners, while more than 13,000 people added their names to an online petition about the change.

Addressing Shropshire Council at the authority's meeting today, Councillor Bernie Bentick, called for his colleagues to back a motion over the issue.

During his speech Councillor Bentick criticised the efforts to make the public aware of the procurement process - although NHS Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin has insisted it was not legally required to carry out a consultation on the change.

He said: "The online public survey was available for completion from 27th August for just two and half weeks, with very few responses from the limited numbers of paper surveys made available, and out of a population of over half a million residents, there were 579 responses.

"A subsequent online focus group had just 10 participants to represent the whole of Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin’s half million residents.

"Those 80,000 Shropshire people who have no access to digital technology were largely excluded from this survey and this particularly applies to the elderly, who are most likely to use these services."

He added: "The Procurement Process for this contract is currently paused due to a challenge from one of the bidders and an Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel will meet to advise on the process and award decision.

"STW ICB should use this pause to consider halting the procurement process, to provide evidence of its due diligence in awarding this contract to a for-profit provider at a substantially lower value than the current cost and to reassure Shropshire’s residents and health watchdogs by being fully open and transparent in all aspects of this procurement."

Kate Halliday, Labour Councillor for Belle Vue, seconded the motion, and said the current pause in the process created by the challenge provided an opportunity for scrutiny.

She said: "ShropDoc is such a well loved service. It has been running for almost 30 years. We applauded our services for getting a 'good' rating from the CQC today, ShropDoc is 'outstanding' which is not easy to do.

She added: "The ICB are saying the re-procurement is not a cost saving exercise but I think part of the issue for a lot of residents is the company that has been chosen is a 'for-profit' company.

"This is a local service run largely by council people. Money is going to be flowing out of the local economy."

Urging colleagues to back the motion she said: "We have got a chance to pause and really try and scrutinise this and see what's happening."

However, Councillor Geoff Elner, who is joint chair of the county's Health Overview Scrutiny Committee urged caution, saying councillors are not aware of the full details of the plans.

He said: "I will support this because there is such a lot of passion and feeling with this but none of us know the ins and outs of it."

The motion commits the council to making a number of requests to NHS Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin.

They include asking it to halt the procurement process for 'further scrutiny', to 'fully engage' with residents and watchdogs before drawing up contracts, to report to the joint HOSC regularly on performance, and to provide detailed information of how the contract handover period will be managed.