Mental Health Treatment Requirements (MHTR) in the South East, as part of the Community Sentence Treatment Requirement (CSTR) Programme for NHS England and NHS Improvement South East

NHS England and NHS Improvement South East (the Commissioner) sought to commission Mental Health Treatment Requirements (MHTRs) Services across the South East. This forms part of the wider Community Sentence Treatment Requirements (CSTRs) Programme which is a partnership between the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE/I), Public Health England (PHE) and Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS).

The CSTR Programme aims to develop pathways to enable and facilitate the increased use of all three treatment requirements:

ATRs and DRRs in the South East were outside the scope of this procurement, beyond the co-ordination of CSTRs for combined orders. However, there is an expectation that MHTR and ATR & DTR providers will work closely together in the best interests of the service user, especially where it can be identified that a combined order is the best outcome.

MHTR in the context of the CSTR programme is intended for the sentencing of individuals convicted of an offence(s) which has crossed the community order sentencing threshold and may be bused as an alternative to short custodial sentences for individuals who may have range of mental health, personality disorder and psychological issues/vulnerabilities which do not require forensic or secondary care treatment.

The aims of the service are to:

Lot 1 (Reading Magistrates Court and Oxford Combined Court) and Lot 2 (Southampton Magistrates Court and Portsmouth Magistrates Court) were awarded as part of this procurement.

Lot 3 (Guildford Magistrates Court), Lot 4 (Brighton Magistrates Court) and Lot 5 (Maidstone Combined Court) were not awarded.

The contract for Lot 1 (Reading Magistrates Court and Oxford Combined Court) commenced on 01 April 2022.

The contracts are for an initial term of 3 years, with a possible extension of a further three years, as defined and at the discretion of the Commissioner.

Services commenced on 01 July 2022, with the exception of Reading Magistrates Court in Lot 1 which commenced on 01 April 2022.

The initial contract term for Lot 1 will be 3 years and 3 months to account for the earlier service commencement date for Reading Magistrates Court.

Additional information: Secondary MHTRs were outside the scope of this service specification and its provision should be provided through locally commissioned frameworks for secondary care. Primary MHTRs were the sole focus of this service specification. Treatment should thereby be provided by a suitable trained and experienced team of practitioners, for individuals who do not meet the criteria for secondary mental health treatment.

This procurement is being carried out by NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW) on behalf of the Commissioners.

The services are healthcare services falling within Schedule 3 to the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 ("the Regulations"), which are not subject to the full regime of the Regulations, but are instead governed by the "Light Touch Regime" contained within Chapter 3, Section 7 of the Regulations (Regulations 74 to 77).