Health and social work services

Tender description

The Child House Pilot Programme is a joint project between NHS England (London Region) and the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and partially funded by the Home Office. The Child House aims to radically improve support to children, young people and their non-offending families following incidents of child sexual abuse including exploitation. In 2014/15 a review of child sexual abuse pathways was commissioned by NHS England (London region) and undertaken by experts from Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs). This showed that only 1 in 4 children who have been abused come to the attention of statutory services. The child is then subjected to a prosecution based process with multiple police interviews. Many cases do not have enough evidence to proceed to trial and those that do can take up to 2 years before they reach court. Conviction rates are low leaving suspected perpetrators free to re-offend. The Child House concept is simple and in line with best practice, the European PROMISE agreement and evidence from abroad, and aims to provide a service which is centred around the child. Rather than the child/ young person having no choice other than to go to numerous agencies and buildings to access different services, the Child House will provide support ‘under one roof’. The environment will be reflective of the circumstances with an emphasis on being safe, secure and focused around the needs of the child/young person. The purpose of the project is to evaluate whether the Child House model can be successfully established in England and the pilot will be fully evaluated by MOPAC's Evidence and Insight team. The Child House Pilot will be based from a site in Camden and serve the boroughs within the North Central London STP area (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington). The building is being specifically refurbished for the Child House. This Tender process is being managed by North East London Commissioning Support Unit (NEL CSU) on behalf of The Authority in connection with a competitive procurement exercise that is being conducted in accordance with a process based on the Open Procedure under the Public Contract Regulations 2015 (‘the Regulations’ (as amended)). The services to which this Procurement relates fall within the ‘Light Touch Regime’ (LTR) governing procurement of Health, Social, Education and Other service contracts. Neither the reference to ‘Open Procedure’, ‘ITT’, ‘PQQ / SQ’, the use of the term ‘Tender process’, nor any other indication shall be taken to mean that the Contracting Authority intends to hold itself bound to any of the Regulations, save those applicable to LTR provisions. Bidders are also to note that information relating to this procurement is provided in good faith, and may be subject to amendment by The Authority.