Recovery Colleges for NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board

This Intention to Award Notice is issued in accordance with the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 under the Most Suitable Provider process. The Procurement relates to the Due Diligence assessment conducted for the provision of Recovery Colleges in Mid and South Essex. The Authority intends to award the Contract to the Provider that achieved the highest scores across the key criteria used. This Recovery Colleges is from 01st April 2025 - 31st March 2028, with the option to extend for a further 24 months. The aggregate contract value exclusive of extensions is £4,197,523 over the three-year contract term. The aggregate contract value inclusive of extensions, as published in Find a Tender Service, is £6,976,371 over the five-year contract term. Recovery Colleges is a key mental health service provision commissioned by NHS Mid and South Essex Integrated Care Board for the patient population in MSE. The Service has been historically commissioned under separate contractual arrangements held by the individual Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). The ICB was established on 1st April 2022, replacing the CCGs as the Contracting Authority. As a result, these contracts will now be subsumed into a single contract commissioned by the Contracting Authority. The Services are currently delivered by three different providers through a multifaceted approach with differing offers across the system which is reflective of the previous CCG individual commissioning pathways, resulting in inequitable offers across the population of MSE, as well as no current offer in the Basildon and Brentwood locality. The ICB has proposed a single system-wide offer, to amalgamate all of the contracts for these services into one potential contract to support integration, reduce fragmentation of services and reduce the number of contracts that MSE ICB will need to manage going forward. This will enhance and improve outcomes to elicit patient safety and quality. The Contracting Authority has worked with the three incumbent providers and is of the view that this cohort of existing providers have the necessary experience, knowledge and skills to offer a collaborative provision via a lead provider model. Recognition that the services will need to do more with less funding and recognising the benefits and efficiencies of doing things once. Providers will also need to share risk and invest in the service provision through this collaborative partnership. The Contracting Authority intends to award a single contract to suitably, technically capable provider. In order to award a contract, the most suitable provider must have demonstrably satisfied the minimum Basic Selection Criteria, including financial and economical standing, satisfying the Key Criteria assessment and the commercial envelope. The awarded provider will be expected to share the risk, resources, capacity and to work collaboratively with the ICB. SERVICE: Recovery Colleges support people with Mental Health Problems, their carers, and mental health staff, via adult-education-based approaches rather than clinical or therapeutic models. The key principles are that they are collaborative, strengths-based, person-centred, inclusive and community-focused. A peer support and recovery approach focuses on developing people’s strengths and enabling them to understand their own challenges and how they can best manage these to pursue their aspirations. Recovery Colleges are based on the principles of personal recovery in mental health, co-production between people with lived experience of mental health problems and professionals, and adult learning. Recovery Colleges serve people who use mental health services, with empirical evidence of benefit.