Individual Placement Service Programme - Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (Blackburn with Darwen Locality)

NHS Midlands and Lancashire CSU is working on behalf of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (Blackburn with Darwen Locality) who wish to understand the availability of capable providers with the capacity to fulfill an Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Programme. Potential providers are asked to express an interest in potentially bidding for this service.

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence- based model of employment support. Supporting people with severe mental health difficulties to find and keep competitive employment. It involves intensive, individual support, a rapid job search followed by placement in paid employment, and time-unlimited in-work support for both the employee and the employer.

The Lancashire and South Cumbria IPS service currently offers support to any Lancashire and South Cumbria service users aged between 16 and 69 years of age, referred via Early Intervention in Psychosis or Community Mental Health Teams or service users within either of these services who choose to self-refer into the IPS service.

The service operates within the 8 key principles of IPS and a fidelity review of the service is carried out by IPS Grow to ensure the quality of the service and demonstrates the commitment to continuous quality improvement.

The contract will require the provider to work with the ICB to further expand the service to other mental health services available to individuals with a severe mental illness including primary care, increasing the number of individuals supported to secure employment inline with the NHS Long Term Plan requirements as stipulated in the service specification.

The provider will demonstrate the increase in activity by provided regular reports to commissioners and demonstrating the number of service users becoming actively engaged in the service and number of service users starting paid employment as well as other standards required by the commissioners.

Contract Period The initial contract will be for 3 years with a 2 years optional extension. The contract start date would be April 2023 and the procurement is anticipated to commence in January 2023.

Contract Value The Financial Envelope is for a total of £4,550,000 over the 5 years

The purpose of this notice is to give interested providers advance notice of a future procurement opportunity. Interested providers are asked to register their interest in participating in any future procurement opportunity by providing a brief description of their experience in providing this service and their capacity and capability in servicing the population covered by Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (Blackburn with Darwen Locality). Following this Expressions of Interest the ICB is intending to invite interested providers who respond to this advertisement to be involved in a procurement exercise. It should be noted that the ICB does not guarantee to consider or adopt any of the proposals put forward by the market in response to this notice.

Additional information: Interested providers are advised to register with MLCSU e-Procurement portal Bravo via the following link: https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk

The relevant PQQ reference number for this is PQQ_524 and the questionnaire will be located within this PQQ.

To register on the portal: https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk - From the portal (NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Procurement services Portal Home Page, click the 'Click Here to Register' link. - Accept the terms & conditions for using the portal. - Complete your organisation & personal details. - Choose a memorable username and submit. - You will be sent an email with your unique password. - Search out PQQ_524 Complete short questionnaire and submit by the deadline of Monday 28th November 2022 at 12:00.

This contract is for clinical services which are light touch regime services for the purpose of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as specified in Schedule 3 of the Regulations ('Regulations'). Accordingly, the contracting authority is only bound by those parts of the Regulations detailed in Chapter 3 Particular Procurement Regimes Section 7. The contracting authority is not voluntarily following any other part of the regulations.

Right to Cancel: The Contracting Authority reserves the right to discontinue the process at any time, which shall include the right not to award a contract or contracts. This is not a call for tenders and the Contracting Authority does not bind itself to accept any tender received, and reserves the right to award a contract in part, or to call for tenders should as considers necessary.

The Contracting Authority shall not be liable for any costs or expenses incurred by any candidate or tenderer in connection with the completion and return of the information requested in this notice, or in the completion or submission of any tender, irrespective of the outcome of the competition or if the competition is cancelled or postponed.

All dates, time periods and values specified in this notice are provisional and the Contracting Authority reserves the right to change these.

Transparency: The Contracting Authority is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) and may be required to disclose information received in the course of this procurement under FOIA or the EIR.

In addition, and in accordance with the UK Government's policies on transparency, the contracting authority intends to publish procurement documentation and the text of any resulting contractual arrangements, subject to possible redactions at the discretion of the Contracting Authority. Any redactions, whether in relation to information requests under FOIA, the EIR or policies on transparency will be in accordance with those grounds prescribed under the Freedom of Information Act. If and when this requirement is offered to tender, this will be done via electronic means using the internet.