Primary Care Services for the Homeless NHS/SOEPS/21.820 RFI

Primary Care

Primary Care Services for the Homeless NHS/SOEPS/21.820 RFI

NHS Brighton and Hove Clinical Commissioning Group

Request for Information (RFI)

The Commissioner is seeking the views of Healthcare Providers in relation to the provision of a Primary Care Service for the Homeless in Brighton and Hove. The Commissioner is considering a contract period of five (5) years with an option to extend for a further period of up to two (2) years (5+2).

This is a process designed to help the Commissioner to form a view of the best way to commission the service and is not the beginning of a Tender exercise. A Tender advertisement may be issued at the appropriate time, if required, should the Commissioner consider that the optimum route to commission the service is through a procurement exercise. Some questions may seem more relevant and easier to respond to than others at the moment. Please try to respond to as many as you can, as your views are valuable whether or not you have previously come across all of the aspects covered.

Significant progress has been made nationally to improve health outcomes for the population however; health inequalities remain for many socially excluded groups. Health inequalities amongst the homeless population are evidenced at both a National and Local Level, with evidence of significantly lower life expectancy and poorer health outcomes amongst the homeless. Those who find themselves homeless are often extremely vulnerable with complex health and care needs and high levels of comorbidity including: physical, mental health and substance misuse needs. They may be excluded from services or have difficulty engaging with mainstream services, relying instead on emergency or urgent care services such as: Accident & Emergency.

Provision of a Primary Care Service for the Homeless aims to achieve the following:

Aims and objectives of the service

• Improved identification of homeless patients in primary care and acute services
• Increased utilisation of planned health care
• Reduction in the inappropriate use of secondary care
• Delivery of effective preventative health services
• Provision of safe environments that promote physical and psychological well being
• Facilitation of service users to take increasing responsibility for their own health and well being
• Integration of care delivery across health, social care and homeless services through strongly managed co-ordination of services and partnership working
• Delivery of personalised services
• Support for people to access and maintain suitable accommodation, linking with existing local services as appropriate

Your feedback at this point will not have a bearing on any future Tender submissions you may wish to offer at a later date, should the Commissioner undertake a procurement for this service. You will not be disadvantaged if you choose not to respond to this RFI but it will be helpful to understand your views at this early stage, so you are encouraged to respond as fully as you can.

Please complete your response and return via our eTendering Portal, reference: Primary Care Services for the Homeless NHS/SOEPS/21.820/RFI by 5pm on Tuesday 5th April 2022.

Thank you for your participation - we appreciate your time and effort in completing this RFI. Additional information: Please note: NHS England and Improvement have announced that the Sussex Health and Care Partnership, which is made up of all health and care organisations across East Sussex, West Sussex, and Brighton and Hove, has successfully met the criteria to become an Integrated Care System (ICS). An ICS is a way of working across health and care organisations that allows them to work more closely together, to take collective responsibility of the health and wellbeing of populations across large areas.

It is not anticipated that the statutory responsibility or accountability of the individual health and care organisations working as an ICS will be affected, save for the expectation that CCG organisations will be abolished and functions transferred to the ICS. As a result of these intended healthcare reforms, the Contracting Authority(s) currently NHS East Sussex CCG/NHS West Sussex CCG/NHS Brighton and Hove CCG, may change during the life of the contract.