Advocacy Services

This is for a market event only to be held in December 2015.

The Council wishes to appoint one or more providers of Advocacy Services from September/October 2016.

Advocacy is about supporting people so that they can make the right choices, and to speak up and be heard, thereby helping them to secure their rights, services and support they need. These services do not include legal advice.

The services for this contract will include:

• Independent Mental Capacity Advocacy:

Independent mental capacity advocates are available to represent people who lack capacity to make decisions about serious medical treatment, the provision of or change of accommodation, where there are no relatives or friends to act on their behalf.

• Independent Mental Health Advocacy: Independent mental health advocates (IMHAs) aim to enable residents to participate in decisions about their care and treatment.
• Independent Health Complaints Advocacy: The service provides support to people wishing to make a complaint about services from the National Health Service.
• Independent Social Care Advocacy: Provide Independent advocacy to eligible residents (rather than just people referred by the Local Authority) from the point of first contact with the local authority through to any subsequent stage of the assessment, planning, care review, safeguarding enquiry or safeguarding adult review.

This procurement process will be completed under the “Light Touch Regime”, governing “Social and Other Specific Services” detailed in the Public Contracts Regulations 2015. The Council will detail any lotting and the evaluation process in the Contract Notice and/or procurement documents.

Additional information: The proposed contract will be for a maximum of 5 years (probably 2+2+1) from September/October.

The Council will be conducting preliminary market consultation event(s). Interested organisations should register with the South East Business Portal to ensure they receive information regarding these event(s).

The first event is scheduled for early December 2015.

You must specifically register an interest on the South East Business Portal to be updated with the market event information.