Issue - meetings

A report from the Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing is attached.

Councillor Andrea Simpson, Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, presented the report which requested approval to progress to tender for the new Care at Home service for a further 3 years with the option of up to 2 year extension.

Decision:

That Cabinet approves the request to re-tender the Care at Home service.

Reasons for the decision:

Re-tender of the Care at Home contract allows for changes to be made to the service specification that will allow greater flexibility and choice for customers in how their needs are met. The strengths of this are:

·         A well-functioning and sustainable Care at Home service will have a positive impact for other areas of health and social care, for example, reduced social isolation, reduced admissions to hospitals, reduced carer breakdown, more people being able to live at home for longer.

·         Enabling providers to have a stronger role in assessment and care management will allow more capacity for social workers.

·         A truly person-centred service for customers will be developed.

·         Opportunity for new care providers to enter the market and share their knowledge and expertise.

·         Implementation of innovative ideas that the current contract does not allow.

·         Alignment to the Integrated Neighbourhood Teams and Locality Plan.

Other options considered and rejected:

·         Extend the current contract for a further 12 months was considered but rejected given the benefits of re-tendering the service and the positive impact this will have on customers now.

·         Under procurement rules you can make slight changes to a contract without having to re-tender the service. This was rejected as it was felt we should be more ambitious and give customers greater options in the way their needs are met.