Public Health Community Nursing

Brighton & Hove City Council are releasing a PIN as a Call for Competition for the provision of the Public Health Community Nursing (PHCN) Service. Please note the requirements and procedure for submitting expressions of interest via email, further in this notice.

The PHCN service encompasses the delivery of Health Visiting and School Nursing services in Brighton and Hove. Health Visiting teams are based in the City's Children's Centres alongside community Midwifery teams. Health Visitors are supported by a team of Early Years Coordinators employed by the Council.

Health Visitors work closely with Children's Social Work in multi-agency safeguarding casework and with the Looked After Children's team providing the Healthy Futures offer to young and vulnerable mothers,

The School Nurse Team provides health and wellbeing support to pupils in school alongside delivery of Vision and Hearing Screening and National Child Measurement Programme Screening in Reception and Year 6.

School Nursing also plays a role in the delivery of immunisations in secondary schools and the delivers preventative interventions including smoking, healthy eating, physical activity, sexual health and mental health and wellbeing.

The proposed contract is for the full delivery of the PHCN service. The current service is delivered under an existing contract. As a result, it is highly likely that a large pool of existing NHS clinical staff would potentially be eligible for transfer under TUPE.

Quality Standards and essential requirements of Service Provider:

The Service Provider:

• must have a strong track record of successfully delivering clinical services to babies and young children 0-5 years, their birthing and non-birthing parents and to school age children and young people and their families;
• must have an excellent track record in delivering clinical service to safeguarding best practice;
• must demonstrate it has the capacity to deliver the required monitoring data to the national Community Services Data Set and to local monitoring and evaluation process;
• will be required to enter into rental agreements with the Council to enable Health visiting service delivery from the Council's Children's Centres/Family Hubs; and
• will be required to source their own office space for administrative and management staff and the school nursing team.

Contract Period

An initial term of four (4) years from 1st April 2024 to March 31st 2028 with optional extension periods of up to a further four (4) years, broken down into two two-year extension periods, subject to performance.

Please note, the PHCN service is funded via the Public Health Grant. This Grant is awarded to local authorities from Central Government on an annual basis and as a result, precise levels of future funding are not currently known.

Additionally, national salary uplifts relating to NHS staff may have an impact on the delivery cost of this contract. Financial provision for addressing the cost of these uplifts is again subject to Central Government guidance.

As a result of these two factors, the estimated contract value below is based on current funding levels in 2022/23. The Service Provider will be required to work with the Council to adapt the service to changing policy and guidance throughout the lift of the contract.