Health and social work services

Tender description

Contract to deliver accommodation based housing related support and an out of hours peer support service for people with serious and enduring mental health difficulties. The London Borough of Ealing would allow the contract to be delivered by a single organisation or a consortium. It is anticipated that the 2 services will be staffed separately to reflect the differences in the skills needed, but that management will be integrated to reflect areas of overlap and integration. The services are currently located at the same site in West Ealing but have been run and managed by separate organisations. While there is a degree of overlap in the aims and objectives of the 2 services separate specifications for the 2 services have been developed to reflect the differences in the requirements of service delivery. Accommodation Based Housing Related Support The purpose of the accommodation based element is to provide intensive housing related support initially to 15 customers, and later to 18 customers, with severe and enduring mental health difficulties who may also have complex needs. Provision of 24 hour cover with waking night staff will be required. The service will offer customers the opportunity to be housed locally in a safe environment and reduce more expensive out of borough and residential care placements. In addition the service aims to reduce the pressures on acute psychiatric in-patient facilities through the reduction of delayed discharge. Out of Hours Peer Support Service The out of hours service will provide a point of access for customers who are resident in the London Borough of Ealing with serious and enduring mental health difficulties providing support 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Customers may be receiving their mental health care in either primary or secondary care. Core values common to both services are: To treat individuals with dignity and respect — To promote maximum independence helping customers to develop or regain skills and prevent more intensive services being required; — To support and promote individual choice and control to assist customers to realise their potential and aspirations; — To be preventative and proactive, responding to emerging problems and preventing them from escalating; — To focus on person centred support to meet the specific and changing needs of customers; — To involve customers in shaping the services, to take account of their views and act on their feedback; — To ensure fair access and treatment of all. It is anticipated that additional value will be obtained from managing the 2 services together. The successful provider/s will be required to take on a 5 year lease of the property to run concurrently with the service contract. A reconfiguration of the site is planned to build an additional 3 flats as part of the accommodation based service and to re-site/accommodate the Out of Hours Peer Support service in a different part of the building at the site. Capital funding is currently being identified within the Council to fund the necessary building works. It is anticipated that the building works will take place in the summer of 2016. The successful provider will be expected to manage the transition to the reconfigured service during the period of building works.