NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB) Market Engagement Opportunities to expand the early intervention and preventative emotional wellbeing and mental health services for Children and Young People (CYP) age 0 to 25 years

Concepts

• health services
• worcester
• worcestershire icb
• worcestershire integrated care board
• worcestershire
• icb
• nhs herefordshire
• market engagement
• herefordshire
• nhs

Location

Worcester

Description

NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Procurement Unit is issuing this Market Engagement Notice on behalf of NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire Integrated Care Board (ICB) who is seeking initial engagement and feedback from the market to establish potential interest to deliver the future provision for the early intervention and preventative emotional wellbeing and mental health services for CYP age 0 to 25 years across the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire. A virtual Market Engagement event is taking place at 10am to 12noon on Wednesday 31st July 2024 via Microsoft Teams. The purpose of the meeting will be for the ICB to present the service requirements to interested parties, discuss options and receive feedback on the feasibility of the scope and specification of the Service. Interested providers that are suitably qualified and experienced in delivering these services are requested to respond by 12 noon on Wednesday 24th July 2024. To express interest, and to register your attendance at the virtual Market Engagement Event, please register via the Atamis e-sourcing portal at the following hyperlink: https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome Please refer to Atamis Project Reference: C293075 The ICB reserves the right to reject expressions of interest that do not come in within this deadline. Please note those organisations that have expressed an interest will still be required to register for any future procurement and should not rely on their response to this Expression of Interest. NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB is not bound to act on any information generated from the questionnaire, and participation does not automatically guarantee any standing with regards to any future PSR process adopted by Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB. The ICB is considering letting two contracts for the above services, divided into two lots i.e., Lot 1 - Herefordshire, Lot 2 - Worcestershire, for a period of 3 years with the option to extend for up to another 2 years at its discretion. The ICB currently envisages the contract(s) will mobilise from the 1st April 2025 following a formal competitive process. (N.B.: all dates may be subject to change). The ICB reserves the right to amend any proposed lotting strategy for any future procurement exercise. The total lifetime value of the contract is £7,127,600 for the 3 year contract plus the optional extension period of 2 years; this is split to £1,781,900 for Lot 1 (Herefordshire), and £5,345,700 for Lot 2 (Worcestershire). The indicative proposed minimum activity levels are 1647 per year for Lot 1 (Herefordshire), and 5022 per year for Lot 2 (Worcestershire).

Lot Division

CPV Codes

• 85100000 - Health services

Indicators

• Restrictions apply to the lot award allocation.

Other Information

For further details relating to the aforementioned services, please refer to the specification and other attachments section in the Documents (at Atamis Project Reference: C293075). This notice has been issued subject to the Provider Selection Regime (PSR) regulations 2023 for the Procurement of Healthcare Services, to establish market interest in the services here described. It should be noted that this is not a procurement exercise at this stage and participating organisations are responsible for their own costs. All details provided by NHS Herefordshire ICB are in draft format, and the ICB reserves the right to change/amend any aspect of its requirement prior to any potential future procurement exercise. Please note the Contracting party for the avoidance of doubt for any future Contract shall be NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB. There is a compelling body of literature, research and feedback from children, young people, families and stakeholders that reform and change is required to address the emotional wellbeing and mental health needs of young people. The NHS Long Term Plan (LTP 2019) sets ambitions to significantly increase the number of children and young people accessing support and to see a comprehensive range of interventions on offer across all platforms: "We will extend current service models to create a comprehensive mental health offer for 0-25-year-olds that reaches across children, young people and adults. The new model will deliver an integrated approach across health, social care, education and voluntary sector" (NHS Long Term Plan 2019) In 2023, Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB agreed that a key priority locally is the improvement and expansion of Early Intervention and Prevention Tier 2/Targeted emotional wellbeing and mental health services across Herefordshire & Worcestershire. This will: • Increase provision for children and young people to access support and interventions • Improve equity of provision across both counties • Extend support at the early intervention and preventative services to children and young adults aged 0- 25 (up to the day before their 25th birthday). • Reduce reliance on schools/colleges to make the referrals and introduce flexibility to reach vulnerable children and young people not currently accessing services due to reasons such as complex needs or not attending school. There is no dispute that making a readily available, easy to access range of social and emotional wellbeing support and psychological interventions, earlier in the "roadmap", will make a significant difference to the emotional wellbeing and mental health of 0-25 year-olds. This will address needs in a timely, effective, and economical manner, reduce distress, and improve life chances. Currently the Preventative and Early Intervention offer for children and young people (CYP) across Herefordshire and Worcestershire is delivered by three different providers from a variety of funding streams. It is fragmented, and there are gaps, inconsistencies, inequities, and historic differences between the counties in what service provision is available. Current Service Delivery Services for CYP are traditionally arranged in a 'tiered' structure. By strengthening the provision of services at a targeted, early intervention and preventative level, there will be readily available early support and interventions to support the greatest volume of CYP and families. The aim is to reduce the impact of emotional wellbeing and mental health problems at the earliest opportunity, reducing distress and potential for crises, working to support those who require more than universal provision, but do not require specialist CAMHS support. There are inequalities in provision of services across the system for children and young people, including those attending schools not part of the Mental Health Support Team programme, and variation in service offer between Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Most of these services also deliver to an age-range of 0-18 years, which does not meet the strategic aim of emotional wellbeing and mental health services for CYP from ages 0-25 years. In addition, several cohorts of CYP are currently underserved by early intervention and preventative mental health services (current 'Tier 2'), including those who are not in school (in particular those with Emotionally Based School Avoidance), those who have Complex Emotional Needs and do not meet the threshold CAMHS, those who are Neurodivergent, and members of hard-to-reach groups who do not readily access traditional NHS pathways for support. Key points raised from the consultation about the proposed future service include the following: • To have pragmatic and assertive "youth friendly" support that transcends service boundaries and agencies. A "no wrong door" approach. A "One-Stop Shop" • To support social recovery with an engaging and inclusive ethos. • To have support that meets developmental and transitional needs of young people. • To have access to support that is family-focused, prioritising functional and social improvement rather than diagnostic and symptom reduction. • To include Peer Support Workers with lived experience and Youth Workers to co-facilitate interventions and support engagement in services and to contribute to service design, developments and evaluation. NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB is considering the procurement of a new service with the aims to: • Improve the emotional mental health and wellbeing of children and young people through prevention and early intervention. • Increase the early detection of mental health problems and interventions to address, which will lead to improved mental health wellbeing for children, young people and their families. • Improve outcomes for children and young people with identified mental health problems through high quality, evidence based accessible services. • Broaden the approach taken to tackle the wider social determinants and consequences of mental health problems by working with other services. • Optimise value for money by developing high quality services which achieve positive outcomes for children and young people within the available resources. The service will: • Proactively target those children and young people 0-25 years who do not meet the Specialist CAMHS or adult mental health services thresholds and offer early intervention support to young people who are hard to engage. • Provide a range of forums and venues to offer children, young people, families and professionals an appropriate first point of contact. • Work collaboratively with other providers and agencies to continually market the service and ensure the service is universally known about, joined up, whilst working with the targeted vulnerable groups of children and young people. • Continuous engagement and integration with referral agencies, universal and Early Help services to not only promote the service but ensure pathways are effective. • Use recognised assessment and evaluation tools and set clear outcome measures with children and young people accessing the service. The provider(s) must be able to submit and flow data successfully to the mental Health Services Data Set (MHSDS) and provide assurance of this. There is no fixed view as to what the services will look like. It would be advisable for providers to collaborate and offer consistency across Herefordshire and Worcestershire to avoid any gaps/duplication in terms of service provision. This is a Provider Selection Regime(PSR) market engagement notice. Should NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB award any contract subsequent to this request, it will be subject to the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 do not apply to this notice. At this stage this is an engagement exercise only. This engagement exercise will be operated via electronic means using the internet. Details will be made available via documentation and information released on the Atamis portal. To express interest and to register your attendance at the virtual Market Engagement Event, please register via Atamis e-sourcing portal https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome. Atamis Reference: C293075 Should providers have any queries, or having problems using the portal, they should contact Helpdesk at: Phone: 0800 9956035 E-mail: support-health@atamis.co.uk Providers are requested to answer the questions within the requirement section when registering interest (via https://health-family.force.com/s/Welcome ref: C293075 by 12:00 hours on Wednesday 24th July 2024.