Procurement in a Nutshell: Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel: Decision CR0048-26

The PSR removes the procurement of healthcare services from the scope of the Procurement Act 2023, which came into force from 24 February 2025.

The PSR applies to NHS England, Integrated Care Boards, NHS Trusts, NHS Foundation Trusts, local authorities and combined authorities when they are procuring relevant healthcare services.

To access the full decision, please click here.

Background

The Independent Procurement Panel (the Panel) provides advice under the PSR to relevant authorities in circumstances where a provider is aggrieved by an award decision, and the provider believes the PSR Regulations have not been complied with.

The role of the Panel is to provide independent expert advice (as referred to in Regulation 23 of the PSR Regulations) and publish this advice for each review it undertakes.

Relevant authorities should note that, while the advice of the Panel is not legally binding, it is highly persuasive.

The facts

On 30 January 2026, Herts Urgent Care Limited (HUC), asked the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel (the Panel) to advise on the provider selection process conducted by NHS Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Integrated Care Board (CP ICB) for its Integrated Urgent Care (ICU) service.

CP ICB is seeking to award a new contract for its ICU service for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, offering NHS 111 call handling, clinical assessment services and out-of-hours primary care services. HUC has been providing urgent care services since 2016 and its contract was due to end on 30 September 2025.

On 2 October 2024, CP ICB published a notice setting out its intention to follow the competitive process to award a new contract for ICU service. The deadline for proposals was 15 November 2024. The new contract has a three year duration with the option of a two year extension. The intended start date was 1 October 2025 and the total value of the contract over the full five-year duration is approximately £103.5 million (excluding VAT).

CP ICB received bids from four providers. Integrated Care 24 (IC24) was the successful bidder (scoring 83.79%) and HUC ranked second (scoring 76.34%). On March 14 2025, CP ICB informed bidders of the outcome of the provider selection process and published an intention to award notice announcing IC24 as the successful bidder.

During the standstill period, representations about the provider selection process were made to CP ICB by two unsuccessful bidders, one of which was HUC.

Having completed its review CP ICB told HUC that its representations “in respect of the scoring if its bid did not have merit in that [local representation review] panel did not identify breaches of the PSR. However upon review of the representations made by all bidders, the [local representation review] panel identified issues with record keeping and minute taking during moderation”.

The re-modification took place between 23 September and 13 October 2025. IC24 was again the successful bidder, scoring 83.89%. HUC was then eliminated from the provider selection process due to not achieving the minimum required score for “quality and innovation”.

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Take Me There

The decision

Having reviewed HUC’s representations, the Panel identified the following issues for assessment:

1. CP ICB’s decision to use the competitive process to select a provider for its ICU service.
2. Potential conflicts of interest, bias or the appearance of bias in the provider selection process.
3. CP ICB’s decision to carry out a re-moderation process.
4. CP ICB’s recordkeeping and responses to HUC’s requests for information.

The Panel found the following breaches:

CP ICB in not recording its reasons for using the competitive process, breached the PSR regulations and in particular, Regulation 24(g) which requires commissioners to keep a record of the “reasons for decisions made under these Regulations”.

CP ICB in redacting the identity of the authors of the Board reports of 13 September 2024 and 14 March 2025, breached the PSR Regulations, namely Regulation 12(4)(b) which requires commissioners to provide promptly any information requested by a provider where the commissioner has a duty to record that information under Regulation 24.

The Panel’s view is that the two breaches of the PSR Regulations it identified, did not have a material effect on CP ICB’s provider selection process. As a result, the Panel advised that CP ICB should proceed with awarding the contract as originally intended.

What does this mean?

This decision reinforces that commissioners must record why they chose a particular provider selection process and records must be kept as to why such decisions are made

It also highlights that the strongest cases will be those that can demonstrate a breach and a realistic connection between the contract award decision itself.

For further information, please contact Tim Care or Melanie Pears in our Public Sector team.