AMCV 328 - Social Prescribing Peer Support and Community Development

Community Development activity plays an integral role in the delivery of Shropshire’s Social Prescribing model by ensuring that the local community led offer is well understood and well utilised. In doing so, we’re able to meet residents needs more proactively, and support frontline officers to work in a way that is authentically strengths based and asset focussed. This preventative vision is emphasised by local system leaders working across the NHS and Local Authority and this can be seen as a golden thread throughout The Shropshire Plan. Additionally, a focus on community development helps to ensure that opportunities for collaboration and partnership are nurtured in order to strengthen the reach and impact that local support and activity can offer to residents. In turn this enables improved health, wellbeing, independence, self-reliance, and a reduction on the demands placed on statutory health and social care services.

Looking ahead, the Local Authority wishes to build on the effective outcomes that have been developed and delivered locally to-date. By doing so, the contract holder will be required to place greater emphasis on increasing the breadth and capacity of support available to residents based upon the needs of target groups and neighbourhoods. This activity will be largely underpinned through the development of peer support groups and networks that cater to the needs emerging from a range of ages across the population.

Shropshire Council is seeking a provider which will:

1.Ensure that Healthy Lives Advisors and the wider health and social care workforce have the information needed to support residents using approaches that are strengths based and holistic, recognising wider determinates that may influence a person's health and wellbeing. This includes the sign up of quality assured interventions for people to be socially prescribed to.

2.Promote individuals' ability to be more self-reliant and resilient, thus reducing the prevalence of preventable ill health through greater uptake of community led support.

3.Build capacity within communities by addressing gaps in provision and creating an environment that nurtures greater partnership and collaboration across the statutory, voluntary and community sector.

4.Further develop networks for peer support to embed locally and in a way that is tailored to the needs of communities and built in a way that emphasises the principles of coproduction. These networks of support will address all-ages and be guided by local priorities.

5.Support Primary Care Networks (PCNs) to Deliver the Directed Enhanced Service (DES) and the Local Authority to deliver the Shropshire Plan.

The contract term will be for an initial 2 year period with an option to extend by a further 12 months. The contract value is fixed at £145,733 per annum for the full term, including any optional extension period.