Health and social work services

Tender description

The 0-19 years public health nursing service will combine the functions of the health visiting and school nursing services to create a team that will work together to deliver the Healthy Child Programme (HCP) for children, young people and families that has a family centred approach and has a focus on prevention and early intervention that contributes to the improvement of children and young people's health and a reduction in health inequalities. The Council published a voluntary ex ante transparency (VEAT) notice in the OJEU on the 17.10.2019 notifying the market of its intention to award a short term contract between 1.4.2020 and the 31.7.2020 to the incumbent supplier of the services. The reason for the award was because the Council was out to tender and was already in the process of offering the service competitively in the open market, however the current contract ended on 31.3.2020 (with no further scope to extend) and the contract being procured does not begin until 1.8.2020, therefore an interim arrangement was required. Due to the short term nature of the proposed contract and the fact that the new service is currently out to market, it is felt that the most sensible way of addressing the gap in provision is by engaging the incumbent to continue to deliver the service. Following the publication of the VEAT notice, the council carried out a 10 day standstill period before formally confirming award of the contract.