Welfare services for children and young people

Tender description

Hertfordshire County Council (the "Council") is carrying out Pre-Procurement Market Engagement ("PPME") in relation to an integrated therapies offer for children and young people aged 0-18, to include Speech and Language Therapy provision, and Occupational Therapy provision. The Council will consider the feedback received to help inform the Council’s options and further decision making. For the avoidance of doubt, this stage of the project is not part of a formal procurement process and the Council is not committing, at this stage, to carrying out such a process. Participation or non-participation in the PPME shall not prevent any supplier participating in a potential future procurement, nor is it intended that any information supplied as part of the PPME shall place any supplier at an advantage in a potential procurement process. Participation in the PPME will be at each organisation’s own cost. No expense in responding to this PPME will be reimbursed by the Council. Hertfordshire County Council (HCC), East and North Hertfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group (E and NCCG) and Herts Valleys Clinical Commissioning Group (HVCCG) have developed an integrated therapies offer for children and young people. This offer includes Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) and Occupational Therapy (OT). The purpose of this offer is to manage the needs of children and young people holistically, whilst also identifying the most efficient way of commissioning the provision, to ensure the biggest possible spend on therapy and reduce spend on contract management. Hertfordshire County Council and both Clinical Commissioning Groups (CGs) have shared a commitment to provide an integrated therapies offer since 2015. In summer 2017 commissioning agencies agreed to align all extant Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language Therapy contracts to enable a future commissioning opportunity. There is now an agreement to deliver an integrated offer by September 2019. The short-term objective which commissioners are working to is to put in place a clear whole-system offer which includes Speech and Language Therapy (SALT) and Occupational Therapy (OT). CCGs decided to exclude physiotherapy.