North Northamptonshire Council Sheltered Housing Provision of Digital Alarm Stock

North Northamptonshire Council (NNC) is inviting Expressions of Interest (EOI) from potential suppliers for the delivery of digital alarms across the Council's Sheltered Housing. NNC are looking to put in place measures in order ensure our Sheltered Housing Alarm stock continues to work post the National switchover of phone lines from analogue to digital.

After reviewing options available, we have determined that the route we wish to take is upgrading our existing systems, as opposed to any form of Analogue adaptors.

We are also building an in-house team for alarm monitoring. Therefore, our future potential procurement will be split into two lots.

Lot 1 - Provision of Sheltered Housing (grouped living) alarms.

Lot 2 - Provision of digital tele-alarm monitoring software.

The aim of this pre-market engagement is to help us understand elements such as cost, and timescales for deployment, among other things.

Our Sheltered Housing units are split across two localities (Kettering and Corby). There are 10 sheltered housing schemes in the Kettering area, and 27 in Corby. There are circa 972 individual properties within these 37 combined schemes.

Each property holds a number of different systems including:

• Speech Modules
• Personal Trigger / Fall pendants
• Pull cords
• Door entry systems
• Alarm control panels (that connect heat/smoke detectors and inform us if one activates)
• Lift call systems
• Communal break glass

The supplier's equipment will be required to operate within both an urban and rural setting where the quality and level of internet connectivity may vary. Interoperability with peripherals from other manufacturers would be advantageous as we look at future phases of preventative care.

Suppliers' equipment will be required to use the following digital protocols SCAIP, TS50134-9, or BS8521-2 with devices being compatible and interoperable with the digital Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) technology platform, which is yet to be confirmed.

We are progressing with the development of an in-house monitoring service and as such are looking at market options for the supply of a cloud-based monitoring software for our Community Alarm and Sheltered Housing users. This is why we are keen to understand compatibility with different Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) platforms.

In order to ready ourselves for procurement we are asking that interested parties, for either lot, make contact to discuss potential costs. It is important for us to understand the one off cost for supply / installation, but also ongoing costs to us so that we may ensure we budget accordingly.

Questions related to Alarm solution

1. Please confirm whether you are able to offer a full system solution as outline above
2. Regarding the full system solution, we are keen to understand which devices may require a SIM in the event of Wi-Fi loss
3. Please confirm details of battery back up in case of power failure, and any additional costs.
4. Please specify your alarm's compatibility with other supplier's alarm receiving software
5. Please specify your alarms interoperability with other supplier's peripherals
6. Do you provide a maintenance service for your devices/solutions
7. What is the lead time for supply of your devices

Questions related to Alarm Monitoring Service

1. Please confirm the offer is cloud based
2. Please specify your solution's interoperability with other manufacturers devices
3. Confirm high level annual costs to assist our ability to budget the project

In order to support us we ask that you clearly answer each of the points above, this will allow us to easily identify key information that will help inform how our route to market and our specifications. Please email [email protected] by 13th September 2024.

This is an information gathering exercise only to help us understand what options available and establish a market appetite. The Authority will not commit to any information provided at this stage.