The NHS Provider Selection Regime (PSR) will be a new set of rules for procuring healthcare services in England. The PSR is intended to provide a regulatory framework for the award of healthcare contracts by NHS commissioners and local authorities that falls outside the requirements of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 and the New Procurement Act. The PSR will be introduced by regulations made under the Health and Care Act 2022.
The ethos behind the PSR is intended to fit with the integrated, collaborative approach to healthcare commissioning established in the Health and Care Act. The PSR will provide opportunities for contracting authorities to move away from the expectation of competition in all circumstances and towards a system of collaboration and partnership.
The latest news from NHS England is that the PSR is not expected to be in use before July 2023, and therefore not anticipated to be in use in time for the 2023/2024 NHS contracting round.
So in planning your contract award processes for this year you will need to ensure they are in line with the PCR 2015 and NHS Procurement Regulations. Until the PSR is in force, current rules must be followed to arrange healthcare services.
Wales – heading in another (potentially conflicting?) direction
The position in Wales is different. The Health Service Procurement (Wales) Bill was laid before Senedd Cymru on 13 February 2023. The Bill seeks to reform the way in which certain NHS health care services are procured in Wales. Whilst the intent is that the PSR will give NHS England more flexibility to procure and arrange independent health services, there is currently no equivalent regulations planned in Wales. As a consequence, these new arrangements may have an impact on NHS Wales’s ability to maintain and secure health services in Wales when working with independent providers who also work with NHS England. The Welsh Bill does however include a power to disapply the Procurement Act in respect of health services procurement in Wales and a power to create a new (yet to be designed) procurement regime for health services in Wales.
Will be interesting to see if Wales follow England with PSR or implement some other regime. All very complex….
In2 the bargain 