Leeds Mental Health Wellbeing Support - Primary Care Mental Health - West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (Leeds Health and Care Partnership)

This is a notice to inform the market of the intention to award a contract for Leeds Mental Health Wellbeing Support (LMWS) Primary Care for the population of Leeds Health and Care Partnership via the Most Suitable Provider Process.<br/><br/>The Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023, Paragraph 10 - The Page 4 to 5 Most Suitable Provider Process is being used to commission this service.<br/>This notice will be live for fourteen (14) days from the date of publication (22/07/26 to 05/08/26).<br/><br/>The Primary Care Mental Health service (PCMH) is a key component of the integrated community mental health model that has been developed through citywide Leeds Community Mental Health Transformation Programme 2021-2026<br/>The service supports people with mental health needs within primary care and acts as an interface for Primary Care with wider mental health infrastructure in the city through providing initial consultation, care planning and formulation, prescribing, referral to therapeutic offers and navigation into the wider community mental health and wellbeing models in the city and secondary care (CMHTs/Neighbourhood Mental Health Teams). <br/>The service will operate as a single, highly visible point of access and must demonstrate comprehensive, system-wide integration. This includes full alignment with the city’s Talking Therapies provision and embedded collaboration with secondary care mental health professionals, drawing on Community Mental Health Teams including psychiatry and Primary Care to provide a holistic offer. <br/>Primary care mental health services aim to provide early, accessible, and person-centred mental health support, bridging the gap between GP practices and specialist mental health services. These services assess and support people with moderate to severe and complex mental health needs, reducing the need for secondary care while enhancing local care access.<br/>Key Purposes and Services:<br/>• Initial Assessment and Triage: Serving as a first point of contact, they identify mental health problems early, preventing them from escalating.<br/>• Preventing Specialised Referral: Managing cases that do not require specialist, secondary care input.<br/>• Brief Interventions and Support: Providing guidance, such as guided self-help, or brief therapeutic interventions or prescribing to manage symptoms and encourage recovery.<br/>• Bridge to Specialist Services: Acting as a link for patients who need "stepping up" to more specialised mental health care.<br/>• Holistic Care: Focusing on both physical and mental health together, for instance by integrating services directly into GP practices.<br/>• Reducing Stigma: Offering care in familiar settings (for instance local GP practices or third sector spaces) <br/>Due to the system wide integrated nature of the Leeds Community Mental Health Transformation model, developed over a number of years, the Commissioner considers that the most suitable provider will need to demonstrate established delivery arrangements which are already embedded within the Leeds mental health system and capable of delivering the service without disruption to existing patient pathways. Strong, demonstrable partnerships and mature integration across organisational boundaries will be a fundamental requirement of the model.<br/> Providers should be able to demonstrate:<br/>- Registration with the Care Quality Commission and a demonstrable track record of delivering high-quality community mental health services.<br/>- Existing operational integration with Leeds Community Mental Health Teams (CMHTs), Neighbourhoods, NHS Talking Therapies, Primary Care Networks and GP practices across Leeds, including shared pathways, governance arrangements, escalation processes and multidisciplinary working.<br/>- The ability to provide an integrated workforce model incorporating primary care mental health practitioners, secondary care mental health professionals,Talking Therapies interfaces and voluntary sector delivery partners operating within a single coordinated model of care.<br/>- Existing working relationships with a significant proportion of Leeds GP practices and PCNs, sufficient to support safe mobilisation and continuity of patient care from contract commencement, including a practice-based model, comprising direct access, consultation, formulation, trusted assessor functions and proactive population health approaches.<br/>- Demonstrable experience of operating within and contributing to complex multi-agency mental health transformation governance arrangements, including the ability to participate in and support the existing Leeds Community Mental Health Transformation governance model from contract commencement.<br/>- Demonstrable capability to operate as a trusted assessor service across Leeds mental health pathways, enabling direct navigation into multiple statutory and voluntary sector services while minimising duplication, inappropriate referrals and repeated assessments.<br/>- Demonstrable ability to work collaboratively with Leeds VCSE organisations and neighbourhood-based services, including evidence of existing partnership arrangements that can support service delivery from contract commencement, including the ability to coordinate neighbourhood-based delivery, community wellbeing support, social prescribing and culturally responsive services targeted at reducing health inequalities.<br/>- Existing or demonstrably deliverable data-sharing, interoperability and information governance arrangements capable of supporting safe service delivery from contract commencement including capabilities and operational processes necessary to support population health management, proactive identification of need, shared care planning and system-wide performance reporting.<br/>- Demonstrable ability to mobilise and deliver the service from contract commencement without material disruption to existing patient pathways, workforce arrangements, clinical governance processes, neighbourhood models or Community Mental Health Transformation programmes.<br/>- Demonstrable ability to maintain workforce continuity and minimise disruption to established multidisciplinary teams, clinical supervision arrangements, professional leadership structures and relationships with primary care and secondary care partners.<br/>- Demonstrable ability to maintain continuity of care for existing service users and continuity of relationships with partner organisations, with minimal transition risk to patients, staff and the wider Leeds mental health system.<br/>The Commissioner considers continuity of integrated care arrangements to be a critical factor in determining the most suitable provider. The Primary Care Mental Health service forms part of a mature and established citywide Community Mental Health Transformation model, operating through shared pathways, governance structures, workforce arrangements, digital processes and neighbourhood delivery models across statutory and voluntary sector partners. The Commissioner expects the provider to demonstrate existing capability and established operational integration across these arrangements at the point of contract award.<br/>The Commissioner does not consider that proposals which rely primarily on the future establishment of relationships, pathways, governance arrangements or workforce integration would represent equivalent assurance to arrangements that are already established and operational at the point of contract award. Additional information: This is a Provider Selection Regime (PSR) intended approach notice. The awarding of this contract is subject to the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 or the Procurement Act 2023 do not apply to this award.<br/>The award decision maker will be in accordance with the the ICB's Financial Scheme of Delegation<br/>The intention is to award a contract using the Most Suitable Provider Process.