Agenda item

Reablement Service Contract Award Part 1 (Public) Information

Minutes:

Report CS18012/1

 

The Committee considered a report providing an overview of the tendering process for the Reablement Service.

 

The Reablement Service provided short term personal care and support to vulnerable adults, often following an acute health crisis.  Service users received support for up to 6 weeks to help them regain and retain their independence and to reduce or prevent the need for longer term intervention such as further hospital admissions or longer term care packages.  The service supported up to 50 service users at any one time and assisted approximately 500 service users per year.  At its meeting on 14th September 2016, the Council’s Executive agreed for the Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group to tender the Reablement Service as part of its community contract tender under Lot 3: Integrated Rapid Response and Transfer of Care Services, which incorporated a range of hospital discharge services and could be supported by other pathways including rehabilitation and medical response services. 

 

The tendering process for the Reablement Service had been undertaken in accordance with the Local Authority’s financial and contractual requirements.  The tender was based on the provision of reablement services to approximately 700 service users, with an option to increase this up to 900 users, and for service users to receive 30-42 hours of reablement.  Providers were asked how they would construct the service to maximise resources, ensure efficiencies and deliver a seamless offer to residents, whilst enabling the Local Authority’s Care Management teams to remain the principle point of referral.  Following the evaluation process for the tender, the recommended provider was identified as demonstrating a good level of quality and an integrated approach to working across the various hospital discharge pathways and with the Local Authority’s Care Management teams, and also showed a commitment to working with service users to enable them to regain and retain as much independence as possible.  This bid included a proposal to transfer the Local Authority staff currently employed within the Reablement Service to the provider in accordance with the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 (TUPE), and for the transfer ongoing pension liabilities associated with these staff to the provider. 

 

RESOLVED that the Council’s Executive be recommended to:

 

1)  Note that the Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group intends to award a contract for community provision including the Local Authority’s Reablement Service commencing on 1st December 2017 for a period of 5 years until 2022, with the potential to extend for a further period of up to 2 years;

 

2)  Agree that the contributions to this service will be made via the existing agreement the Local Authority has with the Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group under Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006; and,

 

3)  Note that consultation with staff, trade unions and departmental representatives commenced on 15th May 2017 and ended on 13th June 2017 regarding the proposals for the Bromley Clinical Commissioning Group to award a contract for community provision including the Local Authority’s Reablement Service, and that meetings had taken place with staff affected by these proposals, without prejudice to any subsequent TUPE staff/trade unions’ consultation in the event of the contract being awarded.

Supporting documents: