National Staff Text Support Service

The requirement is for a staff support text service, to continue to provide a psychological support offer for all NHS staff. This will aim to be a service provided for all staff during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond.

The service is provided for all health and care workers across the country. Currently over 3600 NHS staff have contacted the helpline since June 2020. On average the text service receives between 170-200 conversations a month from NHS staff.

The text service will offer NHS staff the opportunity to converse with trained crisis volunteers. The requirement will be to run a 7-day service, 24 hours a day, that can operate nationally, and is able to cater to all groups and demographics.

This will need to be set up and delivered at a relatively fast pace, to enable a continuation in service for our workforce. There is a clinical risk attached to the necessity to keep the service continuous for our users, and therefore a gap in service will not be acceptable (a short period of transition between an old supplier and a new one can be agreed however).

Additionally, the supplier should be able to provide anonymized and vital data, to the commissioning organisation, to provide further understanding of emerging concerns and issues related to the health and wellbeing of our workforce. The content, structure and delivery of the reports should be open to change depending on the requirements of the commissioning organisation.

Interested suppliers should register on the NHS England & Improvement e-procurement system here: https://health-family.force.com/login

• Once logged in click 'Find Opportunities' and search for 'National Staff Support text service'
• Click 'Register Interest'
• Once you have registered your interest you will be able to view the Requirements and submit a response to the question within the portal
• Any messages about the opportunity should be sent via the e-procurement system. You can do this by going to the home page and:
• oClick on 'My proposals & Quotes'
• oClick the relevant Project Title
• oClick 'Messages' & 'New Message'