Mental Health Accommodation in Mid and South Essex

ECC and partners have ambitious plans for its new model of Mental Health Supported Accommodation, to develop an integrated health and social care response to meet the needs of individual who require supported accommodation.

A comprehensive review of the health and social care system as a whole for supporting people with mental health needs has been undertaken. The numbers of people requiring support with complex needs has increased over recent years and traditional approaches to supported accommodation and reliance on residential provision for people with complex needs do not deliver the outcomes that people tell us support their recovery.

This Mental Health Accommodation Specification sets out the requirements for enabling people who require support in a Supported Living setting to achieve their outcomes and aspirations by building upon their strengths, skills and knowledge and ensuring they are directing their care and support plans.

Based on broad stakeholder engagement and co-produced with individuals with lived experience, ECC is procuring a range of provision at different Tiers to support the differing needs of People with Mental Health needs across Essex who require support in accommodation. The new model reflects the need for a system change to broaden the provision to match more complex needs to the best recovery settings, and to reduce the number of people placed outside of the County boundary.

There are four service levels complementing a whole system change, which include Intensive Assessment Beds and support in the community:

1. Intensive Assessment Beds (IAB)
2. Complex (Tier 1)
3. High (Tier 2)
4. Medium and Low (Tier 3)

The implementation of the new model started in 2022 in the North East and West quadrant and ECC is now deploying it in Mid and South Essex.

The ITT is for the procurement of Tier 2 and Tier 3 services in Mid and South Essex. IAB and Tier services will be procured later on this year.

This ITT is composed of 2 lots:

Lot 1 – High, Medium and Low services for Mid Essex

Lot 2 - High, Medium and Low services for South Essex