Integrated Community Equipment Services · Millbrook Healthcare Limited for West Berkshire District Council (Jul 2025)

The Council was notified at the end of June 2025 of a possible event occurring on or before 31 July 2025, which, if it were to happen as notified, would cause serious and significant disruption to the delivery of a critical service.

Any disruption to this service would be severe and result in significant risk to the health and wellbeing of service users, including a potential risk of death. The BCES Partners have a statutory obligation to ensure services are delivered effectively and continuously, to a high standard, to service users. The services are critical to the delivery of health and social care services across the area.

The Council, along with the BCES Partners therefore began making preparations for alternative arrangements to ensure continuity of service after 31 July 2025, which have continued as the probability of disruption to the service has increased.

The Council considers that a direct award is justified in all the circumstances on the basis of extreme and unavoidable urgency. The situation giving rise to the need for a direct award was not foreseeable or attributable in any way to the Council, and there was not sufficient time for a competitive tendering procedure to be conducted prior to 31 July 2025 given the complexity and scale of the services required.