Supporting You Worcestershire High Intensity User (HIU) service

This is a Transparency Notice pursuant to the Procurement Act 2023 (Act) to notify the market of a direct award of a contract for the Supporting You Worcestershire High Intensity User (HIU) service for a period of 12 months.

The aforementioned contract is a 'below-threshold contract' as defined in section 5 of the Act. The total contract value is £125,000.00 for the period of 12 months.

This is a short-term award of a 12-month contract to the current provider of the Worcestershire High Intensity User (HIU) service, British Red Cross (BRC).

BRC was commissioned in response to the national HIU programme requirements to carry out a 2-year pilot from 2023-2025, which has demonstrated positive outcomes for clients in Worcestershire.

HIU service requirements are:

• Full time, dedicated HIU roles and programme.
• Delivering assertive outreach into people's homes.
• Ensuring an offer to adults, over the age of 18.
• A focus on A&E attendances and non-elective admissions.
• A holistic, non-medical, non-policing approach.
• A personalised, coaching approach.
• Engagement across the health and social care system and beyond.
• Effective partnership with and "step down" to primary care, neighbourhood services, and community assets.

Following evaluation, NHS Herefordshire and Worcestershire ICB may consider procuring a longer-term service.

The nature of the service means that the Provider Selection Regime regulations do not necessarily apply to this procurement. Rather it is covered by the Procurement Act 2023, and therefore, should a future procurement process take place, it is likely to be a full competitive tender exercise pursuant to the above Act, in order to secure a long-term contract.

If this is to take place, the timescale is approximately 12 months from the time of the publication of this Notice in order to take the above steps, meaning that a break in service provision was inevitable unless these steps were taken to avoid it.

To ensure continuity of service, it was necessary to direct award to BRC for a further 12 months (from May 2025 to May 2026) to allow the commissioning authority to formulate it's position with regards to the future competitive tendering exercise.