Acute-based Social Prescribing Link Worker service (Hospital to Home) and Respiratory -focused Social Prescribing Link Worker service

Tender description

Social Prescribing currently exists in Suffolk in a localised scheme across Ipswich and East Suffolk called Connect for Health. This service expands the offer into the acute setting and community healthcare services with dedicated roles in Transfer of Care Hub at Ipswich Hospital and a respiratory-focused role working across both the acute and community setting. The services comprise in-person hospital-based and community-based support, personalised to the individual, using a "what matters to me" approach to create a personalised care and support plan with the person to reduce length of acute stay and/or support management of respiratory conditions. Lot 1: The services comprise in-person hospital-based and community-based support, personalised to the individual, using a "what matters to me" approach to create a personalised care and support plan with the person. The Hospital to home role is based in Ipswich Hospital Transfer of Care Hub and aims to support people with addressing wider determinants of health to enable safe and timely discharge and reduce length of acute stay and/or readmission. The respiratory-focused role aims to support people with management of respiratory conditions at home by addressing wider determinants of health including improvements to home environment, indoor air quality, smoking cessation, improve access to support services such as pulmonary rehabilitation, and reduce hospital admissions for chronic respiratory diseases. They develop PCSPs for each individual and work in a timely manner to deliver the support they need and empower people. The ToCH-based role in particular may do a warm handover to community connectors in the local community where a person needs further support after they have been discharged from hospital. Both services have access to one-off Personal Health Budget fund to support this. The contract will commence 1 April 2025 and will end on 31 March 2027, in line with the core Connect for health contracts. Any extension of the contract is subject to funding. NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board are awarding the contract named within this notice under the Direct Award C process which is outlined within the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. The provider named in this notice is an existing provider and has been reviewed through a Key Criteria assessment to ensure the awarding body is satisfied with current performance and reasonably expects the provider to be able to satisfy the contract which is the subject of this notice. The contract which is the subject of this notice has not changed considerably when compared with the existing / previous contract delivered by the named provider. The ICB may wish to introduce additional services during the lifetime of the contract ("Contract modifications"). Such contract modifications will be contemplated where additional requirements are similar and or complementary to the services already included in the Specification, at any given time. Such expansion would be by the addition of services commissioned by the Authority as named in the Contract Notice. To this end, after the award of contract, there is a possibility that the contract may be varied as allowable in accordance with the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. Additional information: The existing provider is satisfying the original contract and will likely satisfy the proposed contract to a sufficient standard.