Worcestershire 3ML Pathfinder procurement canned

It seems that the much-vaunted Worcestershire 3ML pathfinder tender, already the subject of a critical TTA post on 5th July due to delays, has now been cancelled.

Tenderers apparently received letters late last week informing them that no offers had been received that met the combined risk sharing requirements of the original tender.  As a result, the telecare part of the tender is to be retendered on a standalone basis; there is no information on tendering the telehealth part.

The view of suppliers spoken to today is that the original tender, as covered in our first post after its release, was far too big and complicated.  To quote Steve Hards’ comment at the time:

“What we are seeing with the Worcestershire prospectus is what happens when tender documents are put together by people who try to compensate for their lack of knowledge by over-relying on material produced by an organisation they believe to be an authority in the field.”

Putting together a tender that will produce sufficient responses to ensure a good competition that will deliver what your customers want at a good price is a remarkably challenging task that I suspect few who have not had to do it can fully understand – I programme managed Surrey’s telehealth tender last year, so I have huge respect for anyone engaged in this task. Key to success is to understand every single requirement you put down, to be sure that it makes a coherent whole that is sure to be deliverable by at least three, and very preferably many more, suppliers. In this case it seems that text and concepts were taken from other documentation without that final sanity check being satisfactorily completed.