AGREEMENT FOR THE PROVISION OF EMERGENCY MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES

Tender description

The ability of LHBs in Wales to manage the demand for specialist and non-specialist mental health in-patient beds became compromised by the pressures from the Covid-19 pandemic. Staff shortages and the need to be able to isolate patients, within suitable in-patient settings, seriously compromised LHBs ability to manage within their existing mental health bed capacity. A high demand for bed spaces in England plus the complications of transporting patients outside of Wales emphasised the criticality of raising NHS Wales’s ability to place patients closer to home within Wales. Consequently, as part of their mental health co-ordination planning the National Collaborative Commissioning Unit (NCCU) identified a need to procure additional mental health in-patient capacity from the independent and the third sector in Wales. A scope to purchase 125 beds, was mapped as follows: Medium Secure beds x 10 Low Secure beds x 20 Locked Rehabilitation beds x 62 Open Rehabilitation beds x 33 Securing capacity enabled the supply of additional mental health accommodation nationally across Wales. Given these unprecedented and uncertain times, there was a requirement for support on an interim basis with an option to extend the agreement on a rolling monthly basis. In order to maintain the provision of these services, the Contracting Authority made a direct award under Regulation 32(2)(c) of the Public Contract Regulations. Due to events that were unforeseeable by the Contracting Authority, the time limits for the open or restricted procedure with negotiation, cannot be complied with. In awarding this agreement, the Contracting Authority met all requirements under the PCR due to the immediate risk that COVID-19 posed to all NHS and social care. In these exceptional circumstances, there was no time to run an accelerated procedure in line with the PCR as immediate and continued delivery of service was urgently required.