GB-London: SEL ICS Portal Review

The South East London Integrated Care System Health and Well Being Committee are commissioning an evaluation of the "Keeping Well in SEL" (KWSEL) portal in order to inform future commissioning of staff health and well-being services and service design.

The Keeping Well in SEL (KWSEL) portal was launched in May 2021 and has had c13, 000 staff across SEL from the health and care sector access it between May and December 2021. The portal offers a wide range of online support and has a chat function and phone line manned by a team who can provide support and signposting to staff. The assessment tool is available in the top eight languages spoken in South East London. Despite the roll out of the hubs, there is a very limited evidence base on the accessibility, acceptability, utilisation, safety, efficacy, quality, cost-effectiveness and impact outcomes and domains. Several studies are in process across the country and this evaluation seeks to expand upon and complement this work.

For example, a comparative staff support programme we anticipate needing to make a commissioning decision on relates to Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs). These are provided, at significant cost, by many large organisations in the sector, including Local Authorities and some large Care Home Providers. Through this evaluation, we want to be in a better position to understand how well the portal addresses the needs of the individuals so that we can make comparative judgements around whether to continue to use EAPs.

In light of this, we anticipate exploring a combination of the following questions:

1.Does the current configuration of KWSEL support its stated objectives? 2.What are the demographics and characteristics of individuals accessing the KWSEL support? In particular, the diversity - both professionally and from other protected characteristics - of staff accessing the hub to understand the uptake and where there may be gaps. 3.Does it facilitate access to mental health and well-being support, particularly for those who are known to be less likely to access this type of support? 4.What has been user experience of the service and is there any variation in experience across staff groups and user demographics? 5.What do users of the service perceive its key benefits and value to be? 6.What do users of the service perceive to be its limitations or shortfalls? 7.For those who have not used the service, what are the current perceptions of the portal as an acceptable and accessible source of mental health support in comparison to other services currently available to them such as Employee Assistance Programmes?

The evaluation partner will have access to core data sets including demographics collected by the service.

We would anticipate a combination of both qualitative and quantitative analysis will be conducted to help refine and answer the evaluation questions.

Additional information: The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.

The work will be carried out between April and November 2022 with a final report required by the start of November 2022. A midpoint review of findings would be anticipated in August 2022.

The budget for the project is max. £80k.