Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much (a) Bridgewater and (b) Merseycare NHS Trust spent on bidding for the Liverpool Community Health contract.

In line with the requirements of the transaction process Bridgewater Community Healthcare Foundation Trust (BCHFT) required external support (both legal and financial) to complete the due diligence for Liverpool Community Health services and South Sefton, a competitive dialogue phase, and also external support costs of progressing through NHS Improvement’s prescribed significant transaction process once Bridgewater had been named as the preferred provider at the end of November 2016. It has calculated and confirmed those costs to NHS Improvement as £550,000. BCHFT is now no longer progressing this transaction.

MerseyCare NHS Foundation Trusts report that the cost in preparing the bid for Liverpool Community Health services alongside the South Sefton bid from 1 June to 30 November 2016 is estimated at £313,000. These costs related to dedicated programme management, finance staff support and external bid writing.