West Lancashire community services procurement

The ICB, supported by NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit, has completed a competitive procurement for the provision of community health services in West Lancashire. This process was undertaken in line with the Provider Selection Regime (PSR) Regulations.

Following the completion of the process, the ICB has awarded a single contract to deliver community health services in West Lancashire to NHS Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust.

About the contract

Providers were invited to bid for the new contract, which covers all adult community services, along with the all-age podiatry service, in October 2025.

The contract brings together a range of community health services under one provider, including:

  • Community diabetes services
  • Community stroke and neuro rehabilitation services
  • Intermediate care therapy services

The contract will cover the West Lancashire locality, a predominantly rural district with a population of around 118,000 people. It is made up of the 1960s new town of Skelmersdale, the historic market town of Ormskirk, and several villages situated primarily in the rural Northern Parishes.

The proposed contract term is three years, with the option to extend for a further two years, running from 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2031.

Transforming community health services and developing the neighbourhood health approach is one of the ICB’s top priorities. Our ambition is to develop a world class, community centred health and care system.

Through this contract, we aim to:

  • Improve health outcomes for local people
  • Reduce health inequalities
  • Support people to stay well and independent in their own homes
  • Identify and support people at risk of deterioration earlier
  • Deliver more personalised, joined up care closer to home

The decision to award a single contract reflects our commitment to service stability, integration and sustainability, and supports closer working across community teams and partners.

The procurement was run as a competitive tendering process, in line with the PSR Regulations. Bids were assessed against the five key PSR criteria:

  1. Quality and innovation
  2. Value
  3. Integration, collaboration and service sustainability
  4. Improving access, reducing health inequalities and facilitating choice
  5. Social value

NHS Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust achieved the highest overall score and has been awarded the contract.

Over the coming months, we will work closely with NHS Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, alongside the existing provider and other partners, to ensure a smooth transition ahead of the contract start date on 1 July 2026.

Engagement and involvement 

The ICB is committed to putting the needs of people living in Lancashire and South Cumbria at the heart of all we do. There is a collective ambition to do this by working with residents and communities and our partners to co-produce and improve health and wellbeing services.

In order to support the development of the community services specifications in West Lancashire, patient and public insights from various engagement exercises were taken into consideration as detailed below:

We also recruited two members of the public from our Citizens Health Reference Group to support the procurement evaluation process. 

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