Portsmouth City Council Home Care Re-Commissioning Consultation

Portsmouth City Council (the 'Council') is undertaking a Soft Market Testing (SMT) exercise as part of a strategic review of delivery options in providing domiciliary care services, mainly within the Portsmouth boundary (PO1 To PO6) but occasionally in the surrounding area.

The nature of support required will be individualised and will be aimed at maintaining individuals in a reasonable state of health, hygiene and safety in their own home. Support packages will vary in size based on the individual needs and may range from minimal support up to highly specialised and complex needs.

The Council have reviewed current and alternative delivery models with other Local Authorities to explore the commissioning of home care. The Council's aim in undertaking this SMT exercise is to explore providers views on these delivery options, and to identify current working practices, existing challenges and risks within the market with other Local Authorities that providers are currently and previously providing support services for.

The feedback will inform the Council's strategic options and help ensure that any subsequent procurement strategy is optimised to meet resident needs, strategic objectives, statutory obligations and best value duties.

The Council are inviting interested providers to attend an in-person Home Care Re-Commissioning Consultation event at the Lord Mayors Banqueting Hall in Portsmouth Guildhall on 12th February 2025 from 10:00 to 14:30 to explore the future for home care in Portsmouth. The in-person event is providers opportunity to contribute to shaping the future of home care services in our community.

At this stage, the Council are restricting attendance to one person from each provider as the Council can only accommodate 100 places at the event. The event will be on a first come first serve basis. In the event that the Council exceeds the maximum occupancy for the event, the Council reserves the right to run an additional online event to engage further with providers who could not attend the in-person event.

Places for the event can be reserved using the following link - https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/portsmouth-city-council-home-care-re-commissioning-consultation-event-tickets-1125218000329?aff=oddtdtcreator

In addition, providers can find the link to the event and details of the SMT event on the Councils e-sourcing platform - Intend. Should providers have any questions around the SMT event, then suppliers should use the correspondence function on Intend. Providers can register on Intend using the following link - https://in-tendhost.co.uk/portsmouthcc/aspx/home.

The Council have published this Prior Information Notice and subsequent associated documents under the current Public Contract Regulations 2015. However, the subsequent formal procurement will commence under the Procurement Act 2023 as this will be after the current go live date of 24th February 2025, subject to their being no further significant delays.

To avoid any future compliance issues impacting a subsequent procurement process, the Council has designed an SMT process that will align with the requirements of the Procurement Act 2023, particularly in relation to the increased transparency, conflict assessment and risk assessment considerations that the act will impose.

The Council established a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) on 1st February 2020, to meet the existing and future demands for Domiciliary Care.

The DPS was initially awarded on the basis of a 5-year term, with the option to extend beyond the initial term by a minimum of 1-year intervals for an indefinite period. The Council closed the DPS to new entrants on 18th December 2023.

Whilst the Council undertakes the SMT review, the Council is extending the DPS by an initial 12 month period with further options to extend until the commissioning model can be re-procured, without re-opening the DPS to new entrants.

See II.2.4 Description of the procurement for further details