West Sussex Crisis House Service

Concepts

• health services
• lewes
• turning point ltd
• west sussex crisis house service
• provision of a crisis house service
• west sussex
• longer-term service
• current provider of a similar service
• part of the crisis alternatives
• alternative crisis services

Location

Description

This notice is to inform the market of the intention to directly award a 12-month contract to Turning Point Ltd for the provision of a Crisis House Service for NHS West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group ('the CCG') from 10th January 2022. The intention is to directly award this contract to Turning Point Ltd as the current provider of a similar service for NHS East Sussex CCG. The CCG wishes to implement a similar service model and as such considers Turning Point Ltd are best placed to deliver this interim provision and are able to mobilise quickly, with the existing infrastructure, staff, relationships with people with lived experience and in-depth knowledge of the current service and pathway. The 12-month direct award for this interim service will allow delivery of this critical provision in West Sussex whilst allowing sufficient time to carry out a procurement for a longer-term service to commence 10th January 2023. Given the known benefits that the model will bring to the acute mental health system, which is suffering from exceptionally high bed occupancy, West Sussex CCG has endorsed a 12 month direct award to Turning Point Ltd. Crisis accommodation is an established and clinically defined provision. Crisis Houses play a critical role in the Mental Health Urgent Care Pathway as part of the Crisis Alternatives aligned with Mental Health National policy direction. From 2019, aligned to the Long-Term Plan for Mental Health, all STP's/ICS have been expected to invest in complementary and alternative crisis services and expand local community offers over the course of the five years through transformation funding. Crisis Houses have been developed across the UK to offer alternatives to A&E or inpatient psychiatric admissions for adults experiencing a mental health crisis. The West Sussex Crisis House will offer a non-medical, therapeutic offer through a short stay (3 to 5 days) recovery option in a safe and calm environment where crisis home treatment is not possible and inpatient stay is not necessarily required. In addition, the service will also offer telephone support to people who have previously accessed the service. After 3 months of provision, the commissioner will complete a review of the service enabling any learning to be incorporated into the new specification for the upcoming procurement for the longer-term provision. This proposal to directly award the contract is made in the context of identified patient need and pressures on local mental health inpatient beds and as such supporting and increasing capacity within the existing urgent care pathway. This is aligned to the Long Term Plan (LTP) and will enable delivery of targets outlined and associated expectations to invest in and provide complementary and alternative crisis services to A&E and admission thus facilitating 100% coverage of 24/7 age-appropriate crisis care by 23/24.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 85100000 - Health services

Indicators

• Contract is suitable for SMEs.
• Contract is suitable for VCOs.

Other Information

The provider will deliver the collaborative working model with Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. This service delivers a co-produced holistic strength-based model and evidence supports that those people in crisis who have an alternative to hospital admission, often enjoy better outcomes than had they been in receipt of an inpatient stay. As such crisis accommodation provision plays an important element in the West Sussex approach to improving patient outcomes and forms a key part of the West Sussex Mental Health and Housing Plan which aims to deliver high quality integrated health and housing services at all points of the patient pathway. A long-established service model is in place in ESX which we now wish to implement in WSX. Contracting with this existing CCG provider will therefore ensure that West Sussex is in a position to deliver this in a timely way aligned to local and national objectives. We have secured NHS England Transformation Funds to deliver local Crisis House Services in 21/22 and given the demand on local mental health beds and the wider system and most importantly the interest of our patients, it will be key for West Sussex to be able to implement a local service. It is a crisis step up residential facility that also acts as step down provision as required. The model remains relevant for West Sussex in that it supports hospital admission avoidance and discharge. What is proposed for the interim, given urgency in the system, is to have a smaller interim service to ensure timely delivery, whilst at the same time enabling adequate time to undertake a longer term procurement. Please note NHS England and Improvement have announced that the Sussex Health and Care Partnership, which is made up of all health and care organisations across East Sussex, West Sussex, and Brighton and Hove, has successfully met the criteria to become an Integrated Care System (ICS). An ICS is a way of working across health and care organisations that allows them to work closer together, to take collective responsibility of the health and wellbeing of populations across large areas. It is not anticipated that the statutory responsibility or accountability of the individual health and care organisations working as an ICS will be affected, save for the expectation that CCG organisations will be abolished and functions transferred to the ICS. As a result of these intended healthcare reforms, the Contracting Authority(s) currently NHS East Sussex CCG/NHS West Sussex CCG/NHS Brighton and Hove CCG, may change during the life of the contract.