A number of firms have indicated their interest in jointly running the integrated facilities management and hotel services at Whanganui and MidCentral District Health Boards.

Requests for Proposal (RFP) applications for the delivery of the joint services closed at noon on Monday 22 March, and Whanganui DHB’s General Manager Strategic Developments Brian Walden said:

“This is the interesting stage of the project – looking at the different options available to us. The RFPs submitted are extensive and offer some interesting possibilities.”

The project is part of the centralAlliance between Whanganui and MidCentral DHBs working together under a regional collaboration to develop value for money solutions in the health sector by exploring possibilities for a joint approach in the provision of commercial and support services. The DHBs want to streamline the provision of Support Services so that optimum resources are available for direct patient care. The services involved are:

• Engineering and maintenance, including biomedical engineering;
• Hotel services including patient food services, retail food services, meals on wheels and food and
• beverage vending, dietetic services, cleaning, orderlies, security and other hotel and ancillary
services;
• Transport and fleet services
• Security services.

The DHBs have set up a governance structure to guide the project to completion. This consists of a project manager, probity advisor, project control group, governance advisory group, and a tender evaluation team.

The next step will be evaluating the RFPs with recommendations to the Boards of both DHBs for decision. This is expected to be around May/June.