Procurement in a Nutshell: Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel: CR0062-26

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 Patient Choice and 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 5 June 2026, Chilvers & McCrea Limited (Chilvers & McCrea) asked the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel (the Panel) to advise on the provider selection process conducted by NHS South East London Integrated Care Board (SEL ICB) for Personal Medical Services (PMS) at Silverlock Medical Centre and Queens Road Surgery. Chilvers & McCrea is a subsidiary of Operose Health Limited, which is itself owned by T20 Osprey Midco Limited.

SEL ICB is seeking to award new PMS contract for primary care services at Silverlock Medical Centre and Queens Road Surgery, in the London Borough of Southwark. As of October 2024, Silverlock Medical Centre had approximately 16,500 registered patients and Queens Road Surgery had approximately 14,500 registered patients.

AT Medics Limited (AT Medics) is the incumbent provider. AT Medics is owned by Operose Health, making it part of the same corporate group as Chilvers & McCrea. AT Medics has held the Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS) contracts for both practices since 1 January 2020.

On 31 December 2025, SEL ICB decided to engage in a new provider selection process for both practices.

On 2 May 2025, SEL ICB published a notice setting out its intention to use the competitive process to select providers to operate Silverlock Medical Centre and Queens Road Surgery. The procurement was made up of two lots. Lot 1 was for Silverlock Medical Centre with an approximate value of £2.1 million and Lot 2 was for Queens Road Surgery with an approximate annual contract value of £2 million.

On 31 October 2025, SEL ICB informed bidders that Woolbridge was the successful bidder for both lots and published an intention to award notice to this effect.

On 11 November 2025, before the end of the standstill period, Chilvers & McCrea raised concerns regarding the provider selection process. SEL ICB considered Chilvers & McCrea’s representations and on 18 February 2026, communicated its decision to proceed with awarding the contract to Woodbridge while at the same time responding to Chilvers & McCrea’s information requests.

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The decision

The Panel found that SEL ICB’s provider selection process for PMS contracts for Silverlock Medical Centre and Queens Road Surgery breached the PSR regulations in four respects:

1. By failing to adequately record its decision making on key criteria breached the PSR Regulation 24(f) which requires commissioners to keep a record of a description of the way in which the key criteria were taken into account.
2. When evaluating Chilvers & McCrea’s response to question GQ10, breached Regulation 4 which obliges commissioners to act transparently and fairly and Regulation 11(5) which requires commissioners to assess any offers received in a competitive process in accordance with the contract or framework award criteria.
3. By failing to provide sufficient information to Chilvers & McCrea when requested, breached Regulation 4 and Regulation 12(4)(a) which requires commissioners to “ensure each provider who made representations is afforded such further opportunity to explain or clarify the representations”.
4. In taking three months to respond to Chilvers & McCrea’s information requests, Regulation 12(4)(b) was breached. This Regulation requires the commissioner to provide promptly requested information. The Panel also found that SEL ICB in supplying the requested information at the same time as its further decision following the representations, breached Regulation 12(4)(a).

Given these conclusions, the Panel advises that:

• The first, third and fourth breaches are unlikely to have had a material effect on SEL ICB’s selection of a provider.
• The second breach is likely to have had a material effect on the provider selection process because if SEL ICB had not given weight to matters that had not been included in the formulation of the question or sufficiently disclosed in advance when evaluating Chilvers & McCrea’s response to question GQ10, then it may have selected a different provider as the successful bidder, given the closeness in bidders’ final scores.

As a result, the Panel’s advice is that SEL ICB should return to Step 3 of the competitive process (i.e. “the relevant authority assesses any offers received in accordance with the contract or framework award criteria”) and then repeat the subsequent steps in the competitive process.

As a minimum, the Panel advises SEL ICB to return to the evaluation of all bidders’ responses to question GQ10 and carry out a new evaluation and scoring of these responses in accordance with the contract award criteria set out in the tender documentation.

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