Published date: 5 February 2024

Closed opportunity - This means that the contract is currently closed. The buying department may be considering suppliers that have already applied, or no suitable offers were made.


Closing: 1 March 2024, 12pm

Contract summary

Industry

  • Health services - 85100000

  • Social work and related services - 85300000

Location of contract

United Kingdom

Value of contract

£45,000

Procurement reference

BRACKN001-DN710008-72335745

Published date

5 February 2024

Closing date

1 March 2024

Closing time

12pm

Contract start date

25 March 2024

Contract end date

31 March 2025

Contract type

Service contract

Procedure type

Open procedure (below threshold)

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

This procedure can be used for procurements below the relevant contract value threshold.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

No

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No

Description

The Sexual and Reproductive health (SRH) Health Needs Assessment (HNA) undertaken in 2023 identified population groups where locally there are either known inequalities in SRH outcomes or a lack of local insight about needs. These include people with a learning disability, children and young people, refugees, and asylum seekers, those from minority ethnic groups in particular people of Black / Black British, Asian / Asian British, and 'Other' ethnicity and Gay & Bi-sexual Men who have Sex with Men (GBMSM).

During the MPox outbreak there were many areas in England identified as no longer having an outreach offer to population groups at higher risk of STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections), mainly GBMSM. The Berkshire East Sexual Health Needs Assessment process identified that there is inadequate local insight to ensure a quality sexual health service offer to higher risk GBMSM as well as higher risk heterosexual men and women who are at risk of STIs and HIV and have lower PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) uptake than expected.

National best practice guidance recommends that community engagement forms part of local approaches for groups experiencing or at risk of poorer SRH. Currently in Berkshire East there is limited outreach for SRH. The specialist SRH service provider, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust (BHFT), offer outreach in Bracknell Forest in line with the service specification requirements. This is focussed on specific groups of women at higher risk of poor reproductive health outcomes. BHFT have also recently been successful in gaining research funding to support some engagement work with refugee and asylum seeker communities. Slough and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead also have some outreach support provided through Thames Valley Positive Support, but the focus is on people living with HIV rather than specifically to engage people who do not have HIV diagnosis but are at higher risk.

This service specification aims to use VCSE experience in community engagement and working with priority groups identified in the HNA where there is currently insufficient engagement / dialogue with communities to shape how existing resources could be better used to support access to and for these groups. These include, but are not limited to, GBMSM, people with a learning disability and people of Black / Black British, Asian / Asian British, and 'Other' ethnicity (see section 2 below).

An options appraisal (see Appendix A) determined that work should be divided into two workstreams to work symbiotically: 1. To commission a provider to lead and coordinate outreach work including use of qualitative methods, to better inform as to needs and what the barriers are; and 2. a small grant programme to be used as seed money for some micro grass roots community groups to gain direct insights and support outreach into those groups which include 'protected characteristics' and are within 'inclusion health' groups that are not usually engage

More information

Links

About the buyer

Contact name

Ben Sawyer

Address

Time Square
Market Street
Bracknell
RG12 1JD
United Kingdom

Telephone

+44 1344352009

Email

Ben.Sawyer@Bracknell-Forest.Gov.uk

Website

http://www.bracknell-forest.gov.uk