Enhanced Health in Care Homes - Various Contracts

This is a Contract Award Notice to communicate a contract award made by the Contracting Authority; Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board, (hereinafter referred to as "the Authority") in compliance with their local standing financial instructions (SFIs).

On 29th December 2023, the Authority published a Voluntary Ex-Ante Transparency Notice (VEAT) (Reference 2023/S 000-038024) to inform the market of its intention to award the contract. The Authority applied a voluntary 10-day standstill period prior to conclusion of the contract. The contract award is made to Hertfordshire Community NHS Trust, Garden House Hospice, Dolphin House Surgery and The Maples Health Centre for the provision of Enhanced Health in Care Homes services.

The proposed new contracts are intended to start on 1st April 2024 and end on 31st March 2025. The expected value for all these contracts combined is £834,519. The values expressed in this notice is the expected value of the 1-year period. Please note that these are expected values and may be amended post contract finalisation with the providers.

The total cumulative value of the contracts since the beginning of the service is £2,776,562.92, forecast to 31st March 2024, (excluding VAT and excluding the values of the new contracts).

Additional information:

The NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board (HWE ICB) was incorporated on 1st July 2022 and includes the three previous clinical commissioning groups. Since the HWE ICB was incorporated, we have been working to review services across each 'place' to ensure that there is equity of access for our patients across the broader ICB area.

At the East and North Hertfordshire Place Commissioning Committee on 18th September 2023 it was agreed to extend the contracts for 6 months for the period 1st October 2023 to 31st March 2024 to allow robust review of service outcomes, and to inform future service models.

Following further internal ICB discussions, it was agreed that a market engagement exercise will be required to be undertaken to inform the future service models and this is proposed to take place in January 2024. Therefore, it is proposed to extend the service for a further year until 31st March 2025 for this work to be undertaken. The extension of the contracts allows the time for the ICB to deliver robust service reviews to allow options appraisals to be undertaken on the future service.