Physical Health Check Screen and Intervene Service for People with Serious Mental Illness

This notice is to inform the market of the direct award of a 12-month contract to Southdown Housing Association Limited, for the provision of a Physical Health Check Screen & Intervene Service for People with Serious Mental Illness, for NHS West Sussex Clinical Commissioning Group ('the CCG') commencing 1st June 2022.

The Screen and Intervene service will be a key component in a community-based model that will work alongside the new Locally Commissioned Service (LCS) for GP practices and the new Access Facilitator posts (employed by SPFT) in seeking improved physical health outcomes for people suffering from severe mental illness (SMI), who are registered on GP SMI practice registers.

People living with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) are included on specific General Practice SMI Registers. These are people who have received a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar affective disorder or who have experienced an episode of non-organic psychosis. This group face one of the greatest health inequality gaps in England. This new, local service will also help to support NHS capacity constraints and long waiting lists by ensuring an additional community-based service is in place.

Justification for this direct award decision is based on the urgent need to implement, from 1st June 2022, a Screen and Intervene service for people living with Severe Mental Illness (SMI) in West Sussex, which needs to be consistent with the existing models in place in East Sussex and Brighton. Commissioner capacity has been stretched over the last year, which alongside the continued effects of COVID-19 have resulted in a competitive procurement exercise being delayed.

The service model is well developed from a commissioner perspective and strong and effective partnering arrangements are in place between SHA and the SPFT clinical team, including the SMILES team, and also established PCN-based Wellbeing Services.

Given the imperative to address the current gap in service and the resultant pressures on the wider healthcare system, the decision has been made to directly award, as an interim arrangement, a short-term contract to Southdown Housing Association, pending formal procurement of the future service to commence 1st June 2023. This will allow further time to review the service as proposed and to ensure that the future service, when commissioned, will be complimentary to the ongoing re-development of Emotional and Wellbeing Services. An open procurement exercise will be undertaken during the period of this interim arrangement, to ensure a new longer term contract can be awarded to commence 1st June 2023.

Additional information: The revised LCS model for GP practices will incentivise increased and improved physical health checks for this cohort and place specific reporting requirements on practices. Access Facilitators will work closely with the 40% of individuals on GP SMI practice lists who are engaging least with undertaking their respective physical health checks. They will provide support to increase attendance for this initial health check.

The Screen and Intervene service will then focus on the physical health concerns that will be raised via the initial physical health check and, provide the ongoing support to the individual to maintain their progress on treatment and recovery plans for health interventions programmes, that have been developed for that person.

Please note: NHS England and Improvement have announced that the Sussex Health and Care Partnership, which is made up of all health and care organisations across East Sussex, West Sussex, and Brighton and Hove, has successfully met the criteria to become an Integrated Care System (ICS). An ICS is a way of working across health and care organisations that allows them to work more closely together, to take collective responsibility of the health and wellbeing of populations across large areas.

It is not anticipated that the statutory responsibility or accountability of the individual health and care organisations working as an ICS will be affected, save for the expectation that CCG organisations will be abolished and functions transferred to the ICS. As a result of these intended healthcare reforms, the Contracting Authorities, currently NHS West Sussex CCG, NHS Brighton and Hove CCG and NHS East Sussex CCG, may change during the life of the contract.

Refer to South of England Procurement Services to trigger the review process. This process can be further escalated to NHS Improvement or High Court of England and Wales.