The hotel services contract was due for renewal and, after a competitive exercise to find an FM consultancy, Litmus was commissioned by the Trust to manage the tender.

Due to the merger of two large Trusts in 2007 here were a number of legacy contracts, some with the  same service providers, across the different hospital sites, with different specifications and standards of service at each location. The  strategy was to establish a single Trust wide standard for each service,  and an upper quartile position for quality and patient experience,  whilst maintaining a lower quartile cost base, thereby delivering a best  value situation.

The services involved were:

• Patient catering
• Cleaning and domestic services
• Portering
• Helpdesk
• Private patients

The Trust required:

An Output Specification appropriate for the tender based on:

• Statistical data from current contracts
• Requirements of key stakeholders for each service
• Experience of efficiencies achieved elsewhere

A performance management system with clear and achievable KPIs for each service

• To include recourse methodology for failing performance

A full Project Plan to include:

• Key stages
• What was in & out of scope
• Deliverables

Ongoing management and reporting of the project.

We worked as part of the Trust’s project group and engaged with key stakeholders to develop the specifications for each service. The project group signed off the specifications before commencement of the tender process. 

The objectives were:

• Standardisation of service specs across all the hospitals
• Cost savings
• Upper quartile service quality
• A robust performance management system

We worked with the project group to evaluate the bids, holding a number of moderation meetings to obtain a consensus on the quality scores for each service.

Following technical and financial evaluation of the bids the contract was awarded to a new contractor. 

A saving of £4million per annum was achieved.