RAISING AWARENESS OF CANCER SCREENING - TENDER QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Question
The Summary of Required Activity and Costs – Table 1, shows the total
contract costs for each year to be £180,000 however the number of
sessions to be delivered increases over the length of the contract as
follows: Year 1-80 sessions; Year 2-105 sessions and Year 3 -130
sessions. Is it possible to carry funding over from Year 1 to Year 3 to allow
for the extra sessions in Year 3. For example if the total budget for Year 1
is £140,000 can we carry £40,000 over to Year 3?
Answer
The PHA has reviewed the Tender and has revised the basis on which bidders
should cost the Tender.
The Tender documentation has been revised to reflect the revised approach.
Changes to the original documentation have been highlighted in red for ease of
reference.
Please refer to attached documents
1. Tender Invitations and Instructions for Tendering
2. Tender Specification
3. Tender Questionnaire
4. Tender Evaluation Methodology and Marking Scheme
The tender states that a session should be approximately 6 hours
(Document B, Section 6.1, Page 8). Is a session defined as “facilitator
training” or “educational sessions” with the target audience?
A session is educational sessions with the target audience and would cover breast,
bowel and cervical screening, if relevant to the audience. Exceptions would be, for
example, if the audience was male a session would only cover bowel screening and
would be expected to last approximately 2 hours. Or if the group was younger
women a session would just cover cervical screening. Facilitator training is a
separate exercise to train facilitators to enable them to deliver the educational
sessions. There is no expectation of time attached to facilitator training.
Is there a minimum or maximum time for each “education session” for each
screening area (e.g. cervical screening)? If so, what is it?
It is anticipated that an educational training event would last for approximately two
hours per screening programme. A complete session which covers all three
screening programmes would be expected to last 6 hours. It is acknowledged that
the time will vary according to the needs of the audience. For example, if the group
has learning difficulties the session may take longer to cover than for a group from a
deprived community.
Can an organisation use its professional staff to provide all sessions
through linkages with community groups? If so, will the organisation be
penalised for not using community facilitators?
Yes, the Service Provider could use professional staff to provide all sessions
through linkages with community groups. The organisation would not be penalised.
Is there a minimum or maximum number of facilitators to be recruited,
trained and supported?
No. It could be done by one person potentially. So long as there is sufficient
resource available to deliver the target number of educational sessions per annum
across Northern Ireland.
Must facilitation training be accredited?
No, there is no stipulation that training has to be accredited.
Can an organisation include incentives for the facilitator’s organisations to
deliver awareness training to groups e.g. a monetary contribution towards a
community or sports group?
Do facilitators need to be associated with a community organisation or can
they be un-associated individuals?
No
Will the lead organisation have access to previously trained facilitators to
re-engage with their communities?
With reference to the above Tender, could you clarify if the funding for the
Special Clinics is additional to the £180,000 per year?
No. Although following the award of the contract a request could be made to
explore this possibility.
Funding for Special Clinics is in addition to the £180,000. It will include the cost of
the mammogram, group travel, group talk and light refreshments
They can be un-associated individuals. As above, the service could potentially be
delivered by one full-time facilitator.
If it is additional does this cost include the cost of the mammogram, group
travel, group talk and light refreshments?
a) Are appendices allowed?
No
b) Will the appendices be accepted towards evidence of work with
community groups or must this be included in the main text of the
document?
Additional enclosures will not be considered
We have some further queries, on the basis of the new information:
1. For cash flow purposes, how will the income be managed, e.g. will the
provider invoice retrospectively for actual sessions after they have been
delivered? And on what basis, e.g. monthly/quarterly?
2. If targets are exceeded (e.g. 90 sessions are delivered instead of the
target of 80 in year one), with the PHA fund all the sessions, providing it
does not breach the maximum levels in monetary terms as set out in the
tender (i.e. £180k per annum)?
We request clarification as to why the tender date has been delayed to the
end of the month.
Please refer to Document E Terms and Conditions of Contract v2 (Section 6 Fees &
Payment Terms)
This will be agreed between service provider and commissioner (PHA) during the
contract monitoring process over the course of the year. It would be a possibility.
The closing date for this Tender has been extended to 27th February 2015
to allow all Tenderers extra time to take into account the changes in costing
the Tender.