Early Market Engagement for Southend Healthwatch

Southend-on-Sea Borough Council is seeking to engage with the market to gain an understanding of the capacity and appetite to deliver its Southend Healthwatch service from 1st April 2021. This exercise is to inform the Council in its consideration of options for the future service model and provision of the Southend Healthwatch Service.

This is not a call for competition. As such any future procurement process will be compliant with the Public Contract Regulations (2015 (updated 2016)). This includes but is not limited to advertising and fair treatment of economic operators regardless of their involvement in this Market Engagement.

The Health and Social Care Act 2012 requires local authorities with adults and children's social care responsibilities to commission a Local Healthwatch organisation to act as a consumer voice for people of all ages (children, young people and adults) using health and social care services from 1st April 2013.

In Southend-on-Sea the current contract for the provision of our Local Healthwatch service is due to end in March 2021. The annual contract value is around £119,000, including premises, insurance, staffing and overhead costs. The Council is interested to understand the level of market interest in the provision of its Local Healthwatch service from 1st April 2020.