Individual Placement Service (IPS) - Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (BwD Locality)

NHS Midlands and Lancashire CSU is working on be NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (Blackburn with Darwen Locality) who wish to understand the availability of capable providers with the capacity to fulfil a Individual Placement and Support (IPS) Programme. Potential providers are asked to express an interest in potentially bidding for this service.

Individual Placement and Support (IPS) is an evidence- based model of employment support. Supporting people with severe mental health difficulties to find and keep competitive employment. It involves intensive, individual support, a rapid job search followed by placement in paid employment, and time-unlimited in-work support for both the employee and the employer.

The Lancashire and South Cumbria IPS service currently offers support to any Lancashire and South Cumbria service users aged between 16 and 69 years of age, referred via Early Intervention in Psychosis or Community Mental Health Teams or service users within either of these services who choose to self-refer into the IPS service.

The service operates within the 8 key principles of IPS and a fidelity review of the service is carried out by IPS Grow to ensure the quality of the service and demonstrates the commitment to continuous quality improvement.

The contract will require the provider to work with the ICB to further expand the service to other mental health services available to individuals with a severe mental illness including primary care, increasing the number of individuals supported to secure employment inline with the NHS Long Term Plan requirements as stipulated in the service specification.

The provider will demonstrate the increase in activity by providing regular reports to the ICB and demonstrating the number of service users becoming actively engaged in the service and number of service users starting paid employment as well as other standards required by the commissioners.

Contract Period

The initial contract will be for 3 years from 1st April 2023, with an option to extend for a further 2 years.

Interested providers are asked to register their interest in participating in any future procurement opportunity and provide a brief description of their experience in providing this service and their capacity and capability in servicing the population covered by Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (Blackburn with Darwen Locality)

Contract Value

The Financial Envelope is £4,550,000 over the 5 year period

Following this Expressions of Interest the ICB is intending to invite interested providers to be involved in a procurement exercise. There will be no further advertisement for this procurement and only those who have Expressed an Interest to this advert will be invited to tender. The procurement is anticipated to start January 2023.

It should be noted that the ICB does not guarantee to consider or adopt any of the proposals put forward by the market.

Interested providers are advised to register with MLCSU e-Procurement portal Bravo via the following link:

https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk

The relevant PQQ reference number for this is PQQ_524 and the questionnaire will be located within this PQQ.

To register on the portal: https://mlcsu.bravosolution.co.uk

• From the portal (NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Procurement services Portal Home

Page, click the 'Click Here to Register' link.

• Accept the terms & conditions for using the portal.
• Complete your organisation & personal details.
• Choose a memorable username and submit.
• You will be sent an email with your unique password.
• Search out PQQ_524 Complete short questionnaire and submit by the deadline of Monday 28th November 2022 at 12:00.