GB-Shrewsbury: AMCV 325 - - Statutory Advocacy and DoLS Personal Representative services for Adults.

This is an award notice for a Statutory Advocacy and DoLS Personal Representative services for Adults.

BACKGROUND

The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) places a duty on local authorities to ensure that every person who is deprived of their liberty by the DoLS has to have a Representative. In many cases this is a family member. Where there is no one available to carry out this role the Council must appoint someone. This applies to a wide variety of Service Users (18+) who are being accommodated in hospital or care home in order to receive care or treatment, where the Relevant Person is unable to make this decision for themselves due to an impairment or disturbance in the functioning of their mind or brain.

The Care Act (2014) places a duty on local authorities to provide access to independent non- instructed advocacy to those people who do not have appropriate or available representation and have substantial difficulty in being fully involved in their care assessment care & support planning, review and safeguarding processes.

The Mental Capacity Act (2005) places a duty on local authorities to provide access to a specialist independent non-instructed advocacy service for a wide variety of Service Users (16+) who are found to be lacking mental capacity due to an impairment or disturbance in the functioning of their mind or brain and does not have appropriate or available representation.

The council intends to re-tender the services above in 2 lots as follows:

Both lots were awarded to the same bidder:

Lot 1 - Volunteer relevant person service under DoLS (VRPR)

Lot 2- Care Act Advocacy, Independent Mental Capacity Advocate service (IMCA), Paid Relevant Persons Representative under DoLS (RPR)

The maximum annual budget available for each Lot is as follows:

Lot 1 £15,450 per annum

Lot 2 £62,250 per annum

The contract(s) will commence on 1st October 2024 and will run for a period of 4 years with an option to extend by up to a further 3 x 12-month periods.

Additional information: The contracting authority considers that this contract may be suitable for economic operators that are small or medium enterprises (SMEs). However, any selection of tenderers will be based solely on the criteria set out for the procurement.