Health services

Tender description

This contract award notice is to confirm the outcome of the evaluation process undertaken by West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group to appoint a capable provider to deliver a single contract for the delivery of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Services across the West Essex area. The contract is being awarded to Vita Health Solutions Ltd. This contract award notice is to confirm the outcome of the evaluation process undertaken by West Essex Clinical Commissioning Group to appoint a capable provider to deliver a single contract for the delivery of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) Services across the West Essex area. The contract has been awarded to Vita Health Solutions Ltd. The casual connection between poverty, unemployment and social isolation and common mental health difficulties is well evidenced. Commissioners have therefore taken an innovative and positive new approach that locates the mandated clinical IAPT interventions within the wider socio-economic context in which the service and its users exist. It is expected that, through a strong outward-focus and the establishment of formal referral connections to and from a wide range of existing provision across the area, within limited resources, the clinical IAPT interventions will be better supported to maximise their effectiveness and sustainability and improve service user outcomes. The outward-looking ethos of this service will require a holistic assessment that understands psychological issues in the wider context in which they exist. A wholly clinical assessment will not be enough to gain such an understanding of each person and could lead to failure to pick up on important factors that cause or influence the presenting issue. The national expectations of the IAPT service delivery are documented within the IAPT Manual and further developed in the Positive Practice Guides. These national documents must be used to inform the core delivery of the service. West Essex CCG has also developed its own local specification which does not rewrite the requirements and good practice guidance of these documents, but rather reinforces them and expects that they are used throughout. The Manual describes the complexities involved in delivering an effective IAPT service, and Commissioners have built on it and the suite of Positive Practice Guides to construct their local specification. Therefore, bidders must have regard to both the IAPT Manual and the local specification of West Essex CCG in forming their proposed service delivery model.