Community Wellbeing Workers Service (CWWS)

Descriptions

In response to growing demand on Adults’ Health and Care services, it has been identified that additional capacity is required to support individuals who would benefit from preventative or lower-level interventions. In many cases, the Older Person’s social worker resource is not best placed, or their skills and time are not optimally utilised, to provide this type of support.

The Community Wellbeing Worker service aims to help manage the volume of referrals received by the Older Adults Community Teams by delivering early interventions that prevent, reduce, or delay the need for formal care. By addressing lower-level needs at the earliest opportunity, the service seeks to avoid escalation and promote independence.

The Community Wellbeing Worker service has been developed to address this need and respond to the challenge of increasing demand. Building on the success of a previous contract that supported eight Community Teams across the county, this new service model expands both the geographical coverage and the number of Older Adults Community Teams able to refer. The aim is to provide greater consistency of support for Older Adults Community Teams operating across the county.

This new model groups together several neighbouring or aligned Older Adults Community Teams. This structure will offer a more cohesive service and enables a larger financial package for potential providers, supporting sustainability and improved outcomes.

Offering short-term, person-centred support that complements the work of the referring Older Adults Community Teams has proven a successful model and demonstrated success not only in supporting the resident referred, it has also demonstrated positive outcomes in managing the increasing demand of referrals being received into Adults’ Health and Care.

One of Hampshire County Council’s strategic priorities is to enable residents to stay well, maintain their independence, and manage their physical and mental health better, as is referred to in Section 5 of this specification. Building upon the learning from previous Community Wellbeing Worker projects, which demonstrated much of the support being offered related to health and wellbeing support and interventions, this service specification has embedded a greater focus in relation to the strategies and intended outcomes of Public Health.

Although the service is primarily designed to support residents with lower-level needs, learning from previous Community Wellbeing Worker projects has shown that the service can also successfully assist individuals facing more complex challenges. This includes cases where an Older Adults Team Social Worker is already allocated. In such instances, Community Wellbeing Workers have helped achieve specific outcomes such as accessing benefits, improving home safety, and engaging with community resources.

Engagement

Hampshire County Council is seeking early views from the market regarding the proposed Community Wellbeing Worker Service (CWWS), a short term, preventative support offer for residents aged 65 and over who are referred by the Older Adults Community Teams or by the Contact and Resolution Team (CART). The service is designed to support individuals who may not meet the threshold for formal care but would benefit from brief, outcome focused interventions to improve wellbeing, maintain independence, and reduce the risk of escalating care needs. This market engagement exercise is intended to test the feasibility of the proposed model, understand potential challenges, and identify opportunities for refinement before procurement. We welcome feedback on the Lots structure, the dual referral pathways, and the range of presenting needs that the service must be equipped to address. To support us to prepare for the tender we would like to engage with the market through a questionnaire in order to: • develop and refine service requirements • understand market capacity and capability • inform the Council’s procurement and contract strategy To access the questionnaire, we kindly request that the market register on our e-tendering system: https://in-tendhost.co.uk/hampshire/aspx/Home Once registered, please search the project reference AS28656 and express your interest to access the Market Engagement Questionnaire. Please submit your completed questionnaire through In-Tend via the AS28656 correspondence function by 5pm on the 20th February 2026. If you have any issues with access, format or other, please email AHCprocurement@hants.gov.uk Important Note This market engagement questionnaire is for information-gathering purposes only. Hampshire County Council is not committed to procuring the service at this stage. Progression to procurement is subject to budget approval and internal governance.