Mental Health Treatment Requirements (MHTRs) in Devon & Torbay for NHS England (NHSE) South West

NHS England South West (the Commissioner) sought to commission Mental Health Treatment Requirements (MHTRs) Services in Devon and Torbay.

MHTRs form part of the wider Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (CSTRs) Programme which is a partnership between the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England (NHSE), Public Health England (PHE) and His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS).

The CSTR Programme aims to develop pathways to enable and facilitate the increased use of all three treatment requirements: - Mental Health Treatment Requirements (MHTRs) - Drug Rehabilitation Requirements (DRRs) - Alcohol Treatment Requirements (ATRs)

ATRs and DRRs in Devon and Torbay were outside the scope of this procurement, beyond the co-ordination of CSTRs for combined orders. However, there is an expectation that MHTR and ATR & DRR providers will work closely together in the best interests of the service user, especially where it can be identified that a combined order is the best outcome.

MHTR in the context of the CSTR programme is intended for the sentencing of individuals convicted of an offence(s) which has crossed the community order sentencing threshold and may be used as an alternative to short custodial sentences for individuals who may have range of mental health, personality disorder and psychological issues/vulnerabilities, which do not require forensic or secondary care treatment.

The aims of the service are to: • Increase the proportion of offenders with mental health issues for whom an effective mental health treatment plan is in place. • Reduce re-offending by addressing the underlying causes of offending behaviour. • Prevent custodial sentences (especially short ones), by offering robust community treatment options. • Provide tailored mental health support to the most vulnerable offenders. Individuals supported by pilot sites included those who suffered from post-traumatic stress, trauma, bipolar, personality and phobia disorders, psychosis and ASD.

The contract will be for a term of 2 years and 1 month.

The financial envelope related to delivering an indicative volume of 150 MHTRs.

The Commissioner had a maximum budget available of up to £155,000 per annum and a total budget of up to £322,917 over the life of the contract.

In addition to the funding for service delivery, up to £27,000 of mobilisation funding was available to support the process.

Services commenced on 01 March 2023.

This procurement is being carried out by NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW) on behalf of the Commissioners.

Additional information: There was also likely to be an additional £15,000 fixed sum available in order to undertake an evaluation of the service during the life of the contract; this will be at the discretion of the Commissioner. If this money was to be allocated it will be made available during year 1 of the contract (before end March 2023).

The services are healthcare services falling within Schedule 3 to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 ("the Regulations"), which are not subject to the full regime of the Regulations, but are instead governed by the "Light Touch Regime" contained within Chapter 3, Section 7 of the Regulations (Regulations 74 to 77).

The contract value of this procurement is under the Light Touch Regime threshold and therefore the rules of this Regime do not apply.