Health and social work services

Tender description

The service will provide both pharmacological and psychosocial programmes for the addiction and dependence to illicit substances and alcohol. The service will continue to have the overarching aim of reducing the harms caused by drug and alcohol use. More specifically it will: — prevent early mortality caused by drug and alcohol use, — reduce levels of dependence, — reduce levels of drug and alcohol crime, — reduce demand on social care, — improve the lives of children of parents with drug or alcohol problems, — reduce the spread of infections associated with drug use, — reduce hospital admissions and increase the number of people entering employment and positively contributing to the community. The service will continue to provide, within the scope of available funds, a holistic programme of treatment and support, this will include such things as support for families and carers, physical health care, mental health support, and access to training and employment programmes. The service will provide both pharmacological and psychosocial programmes for the addiction and dependence to illicit substances and alcohol. The service will continue to have the overarching aim of reducing the harms caused by drug and alcohol use. More specifically it will: — prevent early mortality caused by drug and alcohol use, — reduce levels of dependence, — reduce levels of drug and alcohol crime, — reduce demand on social care, — improve the lives of children of parents with drug or alcohol problems, — reduce the spread of infections associated with drug use, — reduce hospital admissions and increase the number of people entering employment and positively contributing to the community. The service will be key in supporting the attainment of the Government’s goals of eradicating homelessness and Hepatitis C. The service will target the full spectrum of substance use problems, from ‘recreational’ drug use and lower risk alcohol consumption to severe poly-substance dependence. This broad focus will be reflected in the service adopting and combining both the harm reduction and recovery approaches to service delivery. It is expected that the new service will increase the level of attention given to early interventions (i.e. primary prevention). The service will continue to provide, within the scope of available funds, a holistic programme of treatment and support, this will include such things as support for families and carers, physical health care, mental health support, and access to training and employment programmes. The contract manager has been working closely with a significant number of stakeholders involved to create a specification that not only reflects the new budgetary requirements but allows the providers to consider how they might best meet the outcomes defined by the contract manager. The specification will therefore be a hybrid version of a requirement based specification and an outcome based specification. The Council believes that providers are best placed to design the service that best supports the required contract outcomes within the parameters of the fixed contract price. Contract outcomes: The contract outcomes that the Council is seeking to achieve are: — to achieve long term, sustainable, positive outcomes for service users, their families and carers, and their children, — to provide a service model that is appropriate to local demographics, unique local characteristics (including geography), and local drug and alcohol use patterns, — to reduce substance misuse related harm, including the harm to the individual, their children and their families, — to reduce of the risk of overdoses amongst the local substance using population, — to provide adequate post- treatment support for individuals completing structured treatment, — to improve re-integration/integration outcomes. We expect these outcomes to be achieved through: — an effective local delivery system for the brief and early interventions (including alcohol IBAs), — a service that responds to the needs of people with concurrent substance misuse and mental health problems, — a programme of stepped care i.e. low, medium and high intensity, — effective, person-centred treatment. This is an open tender process. The price of the contract is fixed and therefore the tenders will be evaluated purely on their quality assessment. The contract start date is April 2020. The initial term of the contract is 5 years with options to extend up to 2 years. All communication must only be made via the portal.