Minutes:
Consideration was given to a report of the Director of Public Health which sought approve to the increase of a contract value for delivery of Oldham asymptomatic community outreach COVID-19 testingprovision with the provider.
The contract was based on a payment by result method and the provider had already received payment for the work completed to end of November 2021. Imposed thresholds and restrictions on volumes that the provider could carry out had not been an option when responding to an unprecedented number of positive cases of COVID-19. None of the surge testing requirements could have been predicted, nor could the Council choose to pull back testing at a time of increasing community transmission.
In January 2021, Oldham commenced delivery of Targeted Testing at Scale, setting up 4 large asymptomatic test sites in response to the pandemic with uncertainty as to how much financial reimbursement would be available from Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
Approval was sought and gained from the Chief Executive using their emergency powers, to proceed to market and award contracts for 2 models 1) a psudo Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) where clinical settings such as Pharmacies could deliver onsite testing and 2) a community provider that could move agile within the borough. In line with procurement law, the second of these models relied upon the contract being issued following a successful competitive tender exercise. As such, the council was required to provide an indicative contract value to potential bidders. There was no previous precedent ever set, and no bench marking available to gage likely number of tests to be completed within 12-month period. The value was published during the tender exercise as an indicative contract value utilising a payment by results method.
Between 1st April 2021 and 31st March 2022, all costs generated through both the above models as part of the delivery of Oldham’s asymptomatic testing service were covered by DHSC community testing programme. Additional testing outside of these contract values did not incur a financial cost for the Council.
Since the 1st April 2021, the testing rate has been evaluated on a weekly basis, in November 2021 when concerns that the community model contract could exceed 1.5 times the published value, there was no option to introduce limitation. Had testing been restricted, the Council would not have been able to respond to the increased requirements to surge testing with rapidly increasing infection rates associated with the Omicron variant. At this time of consideration for introducing limitations on testing and associated spend, there was a national supply issue of home test kits - the testing provider was able to fill this void. Furthermore, increased demands on testing provision were required in vulnerable settings such as the Home Office’s contingency hotel, limiting testing to cap the spend as a method to stay within the approved and published contract value would in these circumstances not have been ethnical and has therefore not been possible.
In March 2021, approval was sought and gained to award the contract for 12 months with an option to extend for up to 12 months, but a renewed approval for extension is now sought in view of the higher contract value.
RESOLVED – That the recommendations contained within the report be approved.