Calderdale and Huddersfield hospitals miss out on £238m care contract

NHS bosses have awarded the £238m Care Close to Home contract to Locala, a community interest company which was up against a consortium led by Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust to get the deal.

The contract is designed to provide more NHS services outside of traditional hospital settings and cut demand on A&E services in Kirklees.

Papers to Calderdale and Huddersfield’s last board meeting show that winning the contract would have increased the trust’s income by £30m, with some associated costs.

But losing the contract was expected to cost £5m for the organisation, which was already forecasting a £20m financial deficit by the end of this financial year.

Batley-based Locala will run the five-year contract from October.

Robert Flack, chief executive of Locala Community Partnerships, said: “We are absolutely delighted to be the chosen lead provider for this work. Colleagues have been crafting and shaping our new model of care for months and are eager to put it into action.

“We’ve already begun working in a new way in one pilot area and another will follow soon.”

The contract was awarded after a six-month procurement process by North Kirklees and Greater Huddersfield Clinical Commissioning Groups, which control the NHS budget locally.

On May 13, the two organisations said they had made a decision on the preferred bidder for the contract.

But they refused to confirm Locala had been successful until today, despite the decision being reported last week in trade magazine the Health Service Journal.