Open Age Older People's Preventative Services

The Integrated Commissioning Department of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea and the City of Westminster (the Authorities) have awarded two contracts to Open Age for the provision of a Bi-borough Older People's Preventative Service. The first contract will cover services delivered within the City of Westminster and the second will cover services delivered within Kensington & Chelsea.

The main outcomes for the bi-borough preventive service are to:

• Keep older residents healthy and independent
• Reduce loneliness and isolation
• Deliver services in a way to suit resident needs
• Ensure quality
• Meet increasingly complex needs

Open Age will deliver on the objectives and outcomes outlined above through the provision of a broad range of high-quality group activities. These will be positioned at the early stages of prevention and aimed at those older people who do not currently have high levels of health or care needs, or significant cognitive decline. Activities will be required to be easily accessible to all through a combination of dedicated older people's spaces, operate in a wide variety of community settings, and offer a remote (telephone and on-line) delivery strand.

Open Age will also provide support to target harder to reach groups or those who may need additional support to access the service. Open Age will work with Health, Social Care, voluntary sector providers and other partners to ensure easy referral routes into and out of the service.

Each contract will be for an initial period of 18 months, with the option to extend for a further 6 month period. During this term, services will be redesigned following significant changes caused by the pandemic, and a competitive procurement exercise will be undertaken for future service provision which continues to meet the needs of residents.