Individual Placement Service Programme - Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (Blackburn with Darwen Locality)

Descriptions

NHS Midlands and Lancashire CSU is working on behalf of NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB (Blackburn with Darwen Locality) who wish to understand the availability of capable providers with the capacity to fulfill an 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 provided regular reports to commissioners 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 with a 2 years optional extension. The contract start date would be April 2023 and the procurement is anticipated to commence in January 2023. Contract Value The Financial Envelope is for a total of £4,550,000 over the 5 years The purpose of this notice is to give interested providers advance notice of a future procurement opportunity. Interested providers are asked to register their interest in participating in any future procurement opportunity by providing 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). Following this Expressions of Interest the ICB is intending to invite interested providers who respond to this advertisement to be involved in a procurement exercise. It should be noted that the ICB does not guarantee to consider or adopt any of the proposals put forward by the market in response to this notice.