Child House - NHS England London Region

NHS England and NHS Improvement (London Region) (hereafter referred to as "The Authority") invites Expressions of Interest (EoIs) and completion of EOI questionnaires from all suitable providers, who are capable of delivering the Child House Service in North Central London.

The Child House Service is a jointly commissioned project between NHS England (London Region), the Mayor's Office for Policing and Crime (MOPAC) and North Central London Clinical Commissioning Group. The Child House aims to radically improve support to children, young people and their non-offending families following incidents of child sexual abuse including exploitation, by delivering services related to health, wellbeing, and criminal justice.

Following the success of an initial 3 year pilot, we are seeking to continue with a Child House model going forward, although with a reduced financial envelope we anticipate an adapted offer to the current pilot service in place.

The development of the Child House Pilot came from a review in 2015 of child sexual abuse pathways in London which was commissioned by NHS England (London region).

This showed that only 1 in 4 children who have been abused come to the attention of statutory services. If the case then proceeds in the criminal justice system the child or young person is then subjected to a prosecution based process with multiple police interviews. Many cases do not have enough evidence to proceed to trial and those that do can take up to 2 years before they reach court. Conviction rates are also low.

Access to specialist health and wellbeing services is a crucial part of supporting children and young people for short term interventions and longer term recovery, whether or not their cases proceed through the criminal justice system.

The concept of a Child House is in line with international best practice, the European PROMISE agreement and evidence from the pilot project included in the service evaluation, and aims to provide a service which is centred around the child. Rather than the child/ young person attending numerous agencies and different locations to access different services the Child House will provide support 'under one roof'. The environment will be reflective of the circumstances with an emphasis on being safe, secure and focused around the needs of the child/young person.

The service required will include Child Sexual Abuse Medical assessments (non-urgent pathways), therapeutic interventions including counselling, clinical psychology, 1:1s and group work, advocacy, Video Recorded Interviews, Court Live Link and Section 28 remote link suite, Social Care Liaison Officers.

It is anticipated that Police Liaison Officers will be directly provided by our partners in the Metropolitan Police Services (MPS).

The service will accept both professionals and self-referrals.

Additional information: The Child House Service will continue to be based from the existing site in Camden and serve the boroughs within the North Central London ICS area (Barnet, Camden, Enfield, Haringey and Islington). Please note the total budget available should include infrastructure costs, such as IT and Estates. These will not form separate contracting arrangements and should therefore be included within the financial envelope available.

The contract will be offered for an initial period of 3 years (36 months), with an option to extend for an additional 2 years depending on the funding availability of various partner organisations. Should a procurement process be required following this EOI process, the contract start date will be 01/04/2023.

Interested providers are required to express an interest in this project and complete the expression of interest (EOI) questionnaire available on the tender portal before the 14th January 2022 at 12:00 (noon). Any expressions of interest received after this deadline will not be considered.

Please note that the contract will be awarded without further publication. Interested organisations must express their interest as instructed in this notice if they wish to take part in this procurement process and no further opportunity notice will be published (in line with Regulation 75 (1)(b) of the PCR 2015).

EOI responses will be evaluated using the criteria set out in the online questionnaire. Should only one suitable EOI be received, NHS England reserves the right to undertake a negotiated procedure to award the contract. Where multiple suitable EOIs are received before the stated deadline from capable providers in response to this PIN, NHS England will publish a procurement opportunity to only those providers who have submitted EOIs in response to this PIN in early 2022.

Any communications or clarification questions about this contract opportunity must

submitted be via the messaging facility for this project on ProContract e-tendering portal.

The deadline for any clarification questions is 17:00 on 7th January 2022.

During the first 36 months of operation a confirmed minimum financial envelope of £1,455,000 per annum will apply. A maximum annual envelope of £1,555,000 will apply (with final funding offer to be confirmed).

Following the initial contract period, there will be an optional extension period of an additional 24 months. At time of publishing this notice, the annual financial envelope of £955,000 per annum is available for the additional 2 year extension due to funding partners being unable to commit beyond the initial 3 years. Should a procurement process be required following this EOI process, the contract start date will be 01/04/2023.

Therefore the total indicative budget for the contract will be between £4,365,000 and £4,665,000 for the first three years, and up to £1,900,000 for the additional 2 year extension option.