Dynamic Approved Provider List For Residential and Nursing Care Services to Older People & Older People requiring Mental Health Support

Cardiff Council currently commissions Residential & Nursing Care for approximately 350 Older People & Older People requiring Mental Health Support in Care Homes across Cardiff and the surrounding area.

This is currently commissioned via a Dynamic Approved Provider List (akin to a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS). The total expenditure for these services in 2019/20 was GBP 29.5 million with the expenditure for 2018/19 being approximately GBP 30 million.

Cardiff Council are seeking to implement a model of Residential & Nursing Care provision which addresses a number of issues identified with the current arrangements including, but not limited to:

• Improving the provider enrolment and quality accreditation process
• Focusing on delivering support which meets the needs and desired outcomes of service users
• Incentivising providers to be competitive and maintain quality standards
• Improving ongoing quality monitoring
• Increasing the number and diversity of our providers including opportunities for social enterprises and small medium sized enterprises

The model will;

• establish an open Dynamic Approved Provider List (DAPL) akin to a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) through our partner organisation adam HTT Ltd who will provide the supporting technology required via SPROC.net. The notice will remain open for the contract duration allowing providers to join or leave the system at any time.
• facilitate an end to end process to manage all requirements that Cardiff Council has for Residential and/ or Nursing Care for Older People & Older People requiring Mental Health Support, from sourcing through to payment.
• allow accredited providers registered on the DAPL to be invited to tender for each individual care placement required.
• establish a methodology which will reflect the quality of service delivered by each provider accredited on the DAPL.
• allow Service Users and/ or their families to make an informed decision based on the location and Quality score of all Care Homes who are able to offer a placement that meets the needs of the individual, alongside detail of any additional Third Party Top up that may be required (if applicable) to support the placement.

The services concerned fall under Schedule 3 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (“the Regulations”) and accordingly are subject to the so called ‘Light Touch Regime’ which means that when procuring these Services the Council should comply with the mandatory requirements set out in the Light Touch Regime (Regulations 74-77). Under Regulation 76, the council is free to establish a procedure, provided that the procedure is sufficient to ensure compliance with the principles of transparency and equal treatment of economic operators (suppliers). For this reason the model proposed is a DAPL which is akin to a Dynamic Purchasing System.

The Council reserves:-

1. the right to withdraw this contract notice and opportunity advertised at any time
2. the right to award all, part or none of the business forming the subject matter of this procurement and to abandon, halt, postpone this procurement at any time.

All economic operators (potential suppliers), who wish to take part in this procurement do so at their own expense and risk.

Under no circumstances will the Council incur any liability (including, but not limited to, liability as to costs) in respect of this procurement exercise, the abandonment of the same, or any documentation issued as part of this procurement exercise