Mental Health Support Teams in Schools (NHS Morecambe Bay CCG)

NHS Midlands & Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit (CSU) is working on behalf of NHS Morecambe Bay CCG. This invitation to tender is for three Mental Health Support Teams in schools, in the Morecambe Bay area.

The objective of this procurement is to identify a provider who will run the existing MHST service currently within Morecambe Bay with one MHST covering Morecambe and Heysham school system and a further team covering the Barrow Peninsular High Schools. To also further establish one new MHST within Morecambe Bay working across High Schools. New services are required to be fully operational within 12 months of the Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHPs) commencing training that is scheduled to start September 2022 for Wave 7, the new team is expected to be fully operational by the end of September 2023.

The teams will provide extra capacity for early intervention and ongoing help within educational settings.

The population covered by the service includes all children and young people aged 5-18 years who are on roll at an educational setting that has signed up to take part in the programme. It also includes those children within the geography covered by the MHSTs whether or not they are on a school roll.

The total value of the contract is a maximum £5,327,590 over 5 years (£911,590 for 3 teams from 1/9/2022-31/8/2023, then £1,104,000 per year until 31/8/2027)

The Contract is expected to commence in September 2022 following a period of mobilization & will be in

operation initially until 31/8/2025 with a maximum contract value of £3,119,590. Years 4 & 5 will only be commissioned following a 12 month notification being served by the commissioner on or before 31/8/2024 with a maximum contract value of £1,104,000 per annum.

The ITT will be live on Friday 10th December 2021 on the MLCSU Bravo portal (see below) & it will have a deadline for submissions on Friday 14th January 2022 12:00pm.

The deadline for submitting clarification questions on the tender is Wednesday 5th January 2022 12:00pm.

Interested providers are guided to the MLCSU eProcurement portal Bravo at https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk to register their interest & gain access to this procurement's documents & more specific information.

The Commissioner reserves the right to reject bids that exceed the indicated budget.

Any other public-sector body detailed within this notice, wishing to access the contract may do so only with permission from the contracting NHS body.

Additional information: This procurement is for Social and other specific services which are Light Touch Regime services for the purpose of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as specified in Schedule 3 of the Regulations ('Regulations') http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/schedule/3/made

Accordingly, the Contracting Authority is only bound by those parts of the Regulations detailed in Chapter 3 Particular Procurement Regimes Section 7 http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/102/part/2/chapter/3/made

The Contracting Authority is not voluntarily following any other part of the Regulations. The procedure which the Contracting Authority is following is set out in the procurement documents.

As the CCG is a relevant body for the purpose of the National Health Service (Procurement, Patient Choice and Competition) (No 2) Regulations 2013 these Regulations also apply to this procurement.

Right to Cancel: The Contracting Authority reserves the right to discontinue the procurement process at any time, which shall include the right not to award a contract or contracts and does not bind itself to accept the lowest tender, or any tender received, and reserves the right to award a contract in part, or to call for new tenders should it consider this necessary.

The Contracting Authority shall not be liable for any costs or expenses incurred by any candidate or tenderer in connection with the completion and return of the information requested in this Contract Notice, or in the completion or submission of any tender, irrespective of the outcome of the competition or if the competition is cancelled or postponed.

All dates, time periods and values specified in this notice are provisional and the Contracting Authority reserves the right to change these.

Transparency: The Contracting Authority is subject to the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA) and the Environmental Information Regulations 2004 (EIR) and may be required to disclose information received in the course of this procurement under FOIA or the EIR.

In addition, and in accordance with the UK Government's policies on transparency, the contracting authority intends to publish procurement documentation and the text of any resulting contractual arrangements, subject to possible redactions at the discretion of the Contracting Authority.

Any redactions, whether in relation to information requests under FOIA, the EIR or policies on transparency will be in accordance with those grounds prescribed under the Freedom of Information Act. If and when this requirement is offered to tender, this will be done via electronic means using the internet. Midlands and Lancashire CSU is conducting this procurement exercise as a central purchasing body for another NHS body with whom the successful bidder(s) will enter into contracts for the supply of the services.

Further details will be made available via documentation and information released during the tender process.''