The Health Foundation is seeking expressions of interest in becoming a supplier for its new Evidence Review Service, which will provide different types of high-quality reviews on a wide range of topics.
Successful providers will be added to the Evidence Review Service supplier list and invited to tender for future evidence review commissions.
ELIGIBILITY
The new Evidence Review Service will provide different types of reviews as set out in the table below.
| Evidence method | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Scoping review | Exploratory reviews typically addressing a broader question than a systematic review or rapid evidence review. They assess the extent of available evidence to highlight gaps. These do not include detailed critical appraisal of the evidence. |
| Rapid evidence review | An evidence review aiming to quickly produce a rigorous synthesis on a pre-defined, focused research question. Not as exhaustive or extensive as a systematic review and some steps may be simplified or omitted, eg, one reviewer rather than two. |
| Full literature review | An evidence review using clear and reproducible methods that are selected with a view to minimising bias, thus providing more reliable findings from which conclusions can be drawn and decisions made. |
The supplier will be responsible for designing, managing and conducting the evidence review, and producing a report or other output as required. This will require a project team with experience in conducting evidence reviews, as well as the ability to write in a clear and concise way. In some cases, the team may require a general understanding of the policy context.
Similarly, reviews are expected to cover a wide range of topics. It is therefore expected that providers will have expertise in conducting reviews in one or more of the following health and care topic areas:
- NHS finances
- Productivity
- NHS workforce
- Service improvement
- Health policy/service reform
- Innovation
- Quality
- Population health
- Data analytics
- Artificial intelligence in health care
- Inequalities in health and health care and wider determinants of health
- Health policy literature
- Health and health care in all four nations of the UK (specifically Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland)
You should therefore indicate any such areas of expertise in your application.
VALUE
Future tender values will depend on the requirements set out in specific briefs. For example, a rapid evidence review that is for internal use only is expected to cost in the region of £30,000-£40,000.
To help the funder understand the value for money that each application represents, applicants are asked to share day rates for staff who may work on this project. This may be for specific roles (please do not include names) or may be representative of level of seniority, etc.
KEY DATES
Applicants can submit any questions by Friday 7 March 2025 by emailing them to evidencereviews@health.org.uk. Questions and responses will then be published anonymously in an FAQs document w/c 17 March 2025.
Deadline: 4 April 2025 (midday)
Final decisions communicated: w/c 19 May 2025
The start date of the new tender service will be communicated to successful applicants as soon as possible thereafter.
Full details can be found in specification document and expression of interest form below, and on the opportunity webpage.