Invitation to Tender: Air Quality Partnership with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust

Key information

We are looking for an evaluator to conduct a 2-year evaluation of the air quality partnership between Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Impact on Urban Health.

• Please send your proposal to claire.phelan@gstt.nhs.uk 
• Deadline to receive a proposal is 8^th January 2023, 5pm.
• Interviews likely week commencing 22^nd or 29^th January.

About the air quality partnership

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust (Guy’s and St Thomas’) is one of the biggest and busiest trusts in the country with approximately 24,000 staff members and 2.5 million annual patient contacts. Our sites are St Thomas’ Hospital, Royal Brompton Hospital, Evelina London Children’s Hospital, Guy’s Hospital, Harefield Hospital and community services in Lambeth and Southwark. Operating at this scale across the capital has a substantial air pollution footprint.

Air pollution is the largest environmental threat to public health, with up to 4,000 deaths in London each year as a result of long-term exposure to air pollution. Every hospital in London is in an area where air pollution breaches the WHO recommended exposure limits. Poor air quality in London results in a significant number of hospital admissions each year, with almost 1000 being asthma and lung-related alone. It’s estimated, that if action is not taken to reduce air pollution, by 2035 there could be around 2.5 million new disease cases in England which are attributable to air pollution, including heart disease, stroke, respiratory disease, lung cancer and dementia, all of which will further increase demand on NHS services. Therefore, it is imperative that each Trust tackles its own contribution to poor air quality, to protect communities and patients.

In 2020, Guy’s and St Thomas’ and Impact on Urban Health (IoUH – part of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation) established an Air Quality Partnership, through which Impact on Urban Health are funding the position of Air Quality Manager at the Trust from December 2020 to June 2025.

At the project start in December 2020, the long-term aims of this partnership were defined as:

• The Air Quality Manager develops a strategic plan for the Trust to reduce air pollution
• The Trust delivers 3-4 key projects which have potential for long-term impact and scale
• Achieve senior level buy-in and ownership for a programme of work on air pollution, as well as a network of clinicians, managers and wider staff who are engaged on the issue

There are two phases to the air quality partnership: Phase 1 which ran for 18 months from December 2020 to June 2022, followed by a 3-year funding extension to June 2025, which constitutes Phase 2.

Evaluation overview

We would now like to work with an evaluation partner to perform two core roles:

• Help us to understand the impact and effectiveness of our air quality partnership
• Generate learning and insights to share with key stakeholders

There is a budget of £50,000 (Inc. VAT) available to fund this work from appointment to June 2025. We will clarify exact timeframes with the successful partner once they are appointed.

We would like to work closely with the evaluation partner to finalise the key questions to be explored, including:

Understanding impact: contribution to reducing local air pollution and increasing awareness

In order to understand the impact of our air quality partnership work, questions to answer are likely to include:

• What activities was the air quality partnership able to deliver?
• Did these activities contribute towards a reduction in local air pollution, based on the available evidence?
• Did these activities contribute towards a reduction in local air pollution, based on the available evidence?
• Did these activities contribute towards increased awareness amongst staff of the risks to health that air pollution poses, and has this enabled them to take action?
• Has air quality and its health effects become more embedded in the Trust’s approach to sustainability and its responsibilities as an anchor institution?
• Has the work of the air quality partnership supported the Trust in implementing its wider sustainability strategy?
• Does our reduction in contribution to local air pollution and raising of awareness lead to greater health equity in our local communities?

Please note this will not require a detailed quantification of local contribution to air pollution. Various data sources will be made available such as progress reports, available fleet data, e-bike mileage data and air pollution monitoring data.

*If you require a copy of the annual progress report to prepare the proposal, please email claire.phelan@gstt.nhs.uk 

Evaluating effectiveness – an air quality manager role for NHS trusts

We would like to understand whether establishing an air quality focussed role is an effective way of reducing local air pollution from Trust activities and raising awareness of the issue amongst staff and patients. Questions to answer here are likely to include:

• Has the investment in an air quality manager role enabled impact over and above what could be expected to be delivered by a Trust sustainability team without such a specialised role in place?
• What value, if any, does an internal air quality role embedded within the Trust offer, compared to commissioning support externally?
• What value does a timebound role offer, with the expectation that air quality considerations are embedded within the wider Trust sustainability approach, compared to a permanent post funded for the long term?

Learning, reflection and sharing insights

We are keen to fully exploit opportunities to share learning and insights from this work. To do so, we would like to further understand and develop the following:

• Which are the external stakeholders this work is most relevant to, e.g. other NHS trusts, ICSs, Greener NHS, other public sector organisations, other?
• What are the key learnings and insights from this work most relevant to external stakeholders?

We would like to produce knowledge sharing and influencing material to be shared towards the end of this partnership, and a short, interim learning report mid-way through the project (summer 2024), as mentioned in the ‘contract and reporting’ section below.

What we are looking for

We are looking for an evaluation partner with the following experience and skills:

• Expertise in mixed methods evaluation, including translating varied evaluative data into strategic insights
• Working within the NHS and/or public sector organisations, and understanding their context and ways of working
• Preferably, a demonstrable understanding of air pollution and its health effects

We would like you to demonstrate how you will:

• Build and cultivate a positive relationship with the partners involved
• Be flexible and adaptable, and able to adjust the evaluation approach when required without losing sight of the overall objectives
• Situate the evaluation within the wider strategic context to ensure that your recommendations are practical and well-targeted

Tender process and proposal deadline

Please send us a succinct written proposal to outline your approach to this piece of work. We equally welcome individual organisations, freelancers or consortia to apply.

Your proposal should include the following:

• Details of your organisation(s), the people who would be working directly on this project, and the experience and skills they would bring to this role (noting our requirements above)
• Your proposed evaluation approach and methodology, to respond to this brief
• How you will work with our team and other partners to deliver the work
• How your work will comply with good ethical practice – e.g. how you will comply with data protection legislation
• A clear breakdown of indicative costs (including number of days, day rates and VAT if applicable) to deliver your proposed programme of work.

The tender will be assessed by representatives from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust and Impact on Urban Health, and a small number of organisations supplying the strongest proposals will be invited for interview.

• Please send your proposal to claire.phelan@gstt.nhs.uk 
• Deadline to receive a proposal is 8^th January 2023, 5pm.
• Interviews: likely week commencing 22^nd or 29^th January