EARLY SUPPLIER INVOLVEMENT FOR THE PROVISION OF CHILDREN'S SAFEGUARDING SERVICES WITHIN CAMBRIDGESHIRE AND PETERBOROUGH.

As the responsible commissioners, NHS C&P ICB is responsible for ensuring all children and young people within Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, including those who are looked after by the Local Authority irrespective of placement type and location, reach their optimum health and wellbeing.

Children in Care Assessments

When informed by the Local Authority, that a child or young person has become looked after, the provider will be required to co-ordinate, and fulfil statutory responsibilities, including health assessments, for those who are placed (hosted) within the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough area on behalf of other local authorities, if this is indicated as required by the originating local authority/health team.

The Statutory Guidance on Promoting the health and well-being of Looked after Children (Department for Education DfE, Department of Health DH, 2015) is the primary document which sets out the requirements to be met. The overarching principle of the guidance is that as corporate parents, those involved in providing services for Looked after Children, should be striving for children to be happy, healthy and to reach their full potential, ensuring that Looked after Children receive the care and support they need to thrive.

Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)

A MASH team comprises of a group of practitioners (local authority, police, health services etc). It operates based on a 'sealed' intelligence hub, with clear information sharing protocols, giving partners the confidence and trust to engage fully in effective multi-agency working. By combining the information held by the full range of agencies working with a child or family, the MASH process allows practitioners to build up a fuller picture of an individual child's circumstances and history before deciding the most appropriate course of action to keep them safe.

The MASH process was strongly endorsed by the Ofsted report, 'Good Practice by Local Safeguarding Children Boards' and 'The Munro Review of Child Protection' 2011 alongside Sections 10 and 11 of The Children Act 2004

The provider will be required to effectively co-operate with health agencies providing a consistent and timely health information sharing response to enable all MASH partners to make efficient and appropriate multi-agency decisions to safeguard vulnerable children.

Additionally, the provider will be a single point of contact for health for all strategy discussion requests from children's social care and the police and to identify and co-ordinate the most relevant health agency to attend.

Child Protection Medicals

The child protection medical service is a consultant led clinic service based within Cambridgeshire & Peterborough that contributes to safeguarding children and young people through the provision of specialist paediatric medical examinations that assist in the identification and assessment of child abuse. This includes all appropriate investigations e.g. blood tests, skeletal survey, CT brain, and medical photography. The child protection medical assessment will take place as part of a child protection inquiry following a joint decision occurring between Children's Services and the Paediatric Consultant. The outcome of the assessment will provide a medical opinion to inform the multiagency planning process regarding the significance of findings. Medical reports and legal statements will also support this process. Additional information: Further Guidance

Although the ICB is conducting this market engagement exercise, it is under no obligation to take up any suggestions from providers.

All details provided by the ICB are in draft format, the ICB reserves the right to change or amend any aspect of the requirement prior to any potential future procurement exercise.

This notice is issued subject to Provider Selection Regime regulations. Please note that any subsequent contract emanating from this notice will be subject to the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 will not apply to any future award.

Right to Cancel

NHS C&P ICB reserves the right to discontinue the procurement process at any time, which shall include the right not to award a contract or contracts and does not bind itself to accept the lowest tender, or any tender received, and reserves the right to award a contract in part, or to call for new tenders should it consider this necessary. NHS C&P ICB shall not be liable for any costs or expenses incurred by any candidate or tenderer in connection with the completion and return of the information requested in this Prior Information Notice, or in the completion or submission of any tender, irrespective of the outcome of the competition or if the competition is cancelled or postponed. All dates, time periods and values specified in this notice are provisional and NHS C&P ICB reserves the right to change these.