Decision details

RECOMMENDATIONS

That the Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Public Health approve a direct award, and a waiver from the WCC Procurement code, to CLCH for the delivery of the Health Visiting Service contract. The contract would be for a period of two years from the 1 April 2020 until the 31 March 2022. The total cost of the two-year contract was £6,920,656.

REASON FOR DECISION

1)              The Health Visiting service was a mandatory requirement for local authorities to provide; how this was delivered is for local decision. This two-year direct award ensured continuity of service whilst an option for a longer term transformed model was developed across a pre-birth to five pathway. It would provide time to explore alternative ways of delivering the mandatory requirements to have greatest impact.

2)              It was a critical time in transforming the model and to ensure all systems within the pre-birth to five programme and that pathways were aligned.The vision of the programme was to improve integration across the partnership and to reshape the delivery of the Healthy Child Programme. This would improve outcomes linked to early years development, school readiness, speech, language and communication.

3)              The current contracts were extended for a period of one year until 31 March 2020. The complexities of this transformation programme and the EYTA project end date of March 2020, resulted in a delay to re-procurement.  The recommendation to progress with a direct award aligned to the wider transformation programme was considered the best option.  

4)              The current provider, CLCH, had been fully engaged within the pre-birth to five redesign work. Negotiations with the provider had enabled the authorities to test new ways of working whilst maintaining the quality of the service.

5)              To ensure we gave children the best start in life the foundations for children to maintain good physical and mental health, healthy relationships and educational achievement need to be embedded across the partnership.  Collaboration had resulted in shared principles across public health and children services based on national and local ambitions to provide children with the best start in life by delivering:

·       reduced inequalities across key markers of maternal and child health

·       reduced rates of infant mortality and low birthweight

·       improved rates of key protective factors linked to better child health outcomes, such as maternal mental health and breastfeeding

·       higher rates of childhood immunisation

·       more children ready to learn by the age of two and ready to start school by the age of five

·       lower rates of tooth decay and hospital attendances due to preventable accidents and illnesses