Intermediate Care Beds Service within London Borough of Sutton

NHS South West London CCG is inviting expressions of interest from suitably experienced and capable providers, to provide an Intermediate Care Service to residents within the London Borough of Sutton. Specifically, the service will provide a range of 'step- up' and 'step down' nursing beds through joint working with the NHS and local Council to ensure that Service Users' physical, mental, and social wellbeing needs are met and avoid acute hospital stays where it is appropriate to do so. Noting the wider Intermediate Care model that will be supported by NHS and Council services, this invitation for expressions of interest, is for providers of nurse led and carer delivered beds in the community setting, appropriately registered with the Care Quality Commission.

The service is intended to provide up to 11 (eleven) Intermediate Care Beds in Sutton on a "block" (fixed value) contract basis. Ideally, the service will have a flexibility to increase bed capacity, particularly during the winter pressure period and at other times when additional capacity is needed. The service will receive referrals from Sutton Health and Care Home First+ team to prevent hospital admission and support discharge from hospital with timely access to a care home bed between the hours 08:00 - 20:00, 7 days a week. Usual lengths of stay are up to 6 weeks, with majority being 2 to 3 weeks.

The CCG's model for Intermediate Care includes for a range of functions such as specialist therapeutic input to support delivery of responsive rehabilitation for people who would otherwise face unnecessarily prolonged hospital stays; or inappropriate admission to acute inpatient care; or long-term residential care. However, this therapeutic element is intended to be commissioned separately by the CCG, to be delivered by NHS Community Teams within Sutton. The provider of the beds will need to provide space for therapies to be provided on site.

Potential contract value of up to £2.67m assumes 11 bed service over 5 (five) years.

A competitive procurement is being assumed (subject to market interest and capability), which is currently scheduled to commence in early 2022 to enable a maximum of two providers to deliver the service from two locations in Croydon, covering the geographical spread of the borough (North and South). The contract(s) will be expected to be awarded by April 2022 and service commencement would then be anticipated from July 2022.

The CCG wishes to understand the views of interested providers, particularly in relation to challenges in providing intermediate care beds in Sutton. Responses to this invitation for expressions of interest are likely to initiate follow-up engagement by the CCG.

Additional information: ***TO EXPRESS YOUR INTEREST and to COMMENCE ENGAGEMENT with the CCG, you are invited to COMPLETE a Market Engagement Questionnaire (MEQ) and return this ASAP by 12noon, Wednesday 2nd February 2022.

Please return your completed MEQ via the messaging facility of the e-procurement system "EU-Supply" which is available at https://nhssbs.eu-supply.com.

*Note: If not already registered with EU-Supply, you will need to register FREE of charge. This will be the main portal to be used to communicate with interested providers, and through which the procurement process will be managed. An attached document "EU-Supply User Guide" will be helpful. If you need technical support on the EU-Supply Portal, please contact the EU-Supply Helpdesk on 0800 840 2050 or support@eu-supply.com.

Once logged into EU-Supply, search for Tender/RFI 48393 - "Intermediate Care Beds Service in Sutton"

Provider organisations responding with a completed Market Engagement Questionnaire to confirm their interest, are likely to be invited to engage further with the CCG, including the CCG sharing latest versions of the service specifications, activity and financial modelling and the commercial approach being developed for the contract - all ahead of any possible procurement process.

Note, whilst your response is not a pre-requisite to any future procurement opportunity, responses, or lack of them will be used by the CCG as evidence and inform selection of the most appropriate process to award a contract(s), including whether a competitive process should be used.