Adults Advocacy Services Engagement

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THE TENDER WILL NOW OPEN ON THURSDAY 18TH OCTOBER. Apologies for the delay.

Brighton and Hove City Council and the Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group will soon be tendering for advocacy services.

Brighton & Hove City Council and Clinical Commissioning Group currently jointly fund 8 different statutory and non-statutory advocacy services. Extensive engagement with people who use, refer and provide advocacy shows that whilst there is some excellent provision, the way that some of the services are organised by client group means that people who need advocacy are sometimes unsure where to go if they have multiple conditions and people need to be transferred between services if they need more than 1 type of advocacy.

The proposed Model is for an Integrated Advocacy Hub with a Lead Provider that will provide a central point of access for People and referrers but still provide essential specialist provision to People who feel particularly excluded from mainstream services. The engagement we have carried out has been considered carefully alongside the experiences of other local authority areas in the country and best practice.

There are statutory duties for the following advocacy provision: • Independent Mental Capacity Advocates (IMCA) under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 • Independent Mental Health Advocates (IMHA) under the Mental Health Act 2007 • Independent Health Complaints Advocacy (IHCA) under the Health & Social Care Act 2012 • Independent Care Act Advocacy (ICAA) under The Care Act 2014

There is no statutory duty to provide Community Advocacy but BHCC and BHCCG are committed to funding this provision as it plays an important in supporting individuals, the health and care system and communities.

The proposal is that a Lead Provider directly provides IMCA across East Sussex, Brighton & Hove and West Sussex and ICAA for Brighton & Hove and West Sussex. The Lead Provider could either directly provide or sub-contract with specialist community advocacy organisations to provide IHCA, Specialist Community Advocacy and a combined IMHA and Community Mental Health Advocacy.

Spot purchase arrangements also need to be in place for specialist providers of deaf, bilingual and autism advocacy. It is expected that a subcontracting / partnership arrangement would be the most effective model as it would retain the specialist knowledge held by specialist community providers.

We would like to inform you that we need to revise the procurement timetable for the Advocacy recommission. This is due to finalising some additional governance requirements with West Sussex County Council. Revised dates: Tender open - 17/10/2018 Tender award - 19/02/2019 Start of contract - 01/07/2019 We are sorry for any inconvenience caused. Please note we have added an extra two weeks to the submission deadline to allow you more time to complete you tender submissions.