South West London Mental Health Support Teams

NHS South West London Integrated Care Board (the Authority) is seeking to commission a Mental Health Support Team (MHST) service comprising 25 operational and developing MHSTs across the six boroughs. The service will provide prevention and early intervention mental health support through a standardised and equitable MHST offer, in accordance with the specified requirements, to improve access to care, reduce health inequalities, and deliver improved outcomes for children and young people across South West London.

Procured through a competitive process under the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023, the Authority intends to appoint a Lead Provider with overall accountability for the governance, management, and delivery of the service.

The Lead Provider will oversee all operational and developing MHSTs across South West London and will be responsible for the mobilisation, delivery and service integration of future MHST teams required as part of the planned expansion to achieve 100% MHST coverage across South West London by December 2029.

The decisions applicable to this Procurement will be made by the Authority.

The Procurement is being managed by NHS London Commercial Hub (NHS LCH) hosted by NHS North East London, on behalf of the Authority, in connection with an Invitation to Tender (ITT) exercise that is being conducted, based on the competitive process under the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) regulations 2023 ("the Regulations"(as amended).

None of the references to "ITT", "Bid", or the use of the term "tender process", or any other indication, shall be taken to mean that the Authority intends to hold itself bound to any of the Regulations, save those applicable to PSR provisions regarding the Competitive Process.

Further information regarding the Authority is available from:

https://www.southwestlondon.icb.nhs.uk/

The lifetime Value of the contract is £89,916,960 excluding VAT.

The contract term is for three (3) years with an option for extension of further three (1 + 1 + 1) years at the sole discretion of the Authority.

The contract will start on 01/04/2027 and end 31/03/2030, if the 1 + 1 + 1 optional extensions are utilised the maximum contract end date will be 31/03/2033.

The maximum duration of the contract is 6 years (72 months).

Further details of the procurement, including service requirements are included in the procurement documents.

NHS South West London Integrated Care Board (SWL ICB) is currently developing its service specification and contracting process for the provision of Mental Health Support Teams (MHSTs) across South West London.

The SWL ICB is seeking to appoint a provider/s of Mental Health Support Teams to deliver MHSTs across local boroughs working with participating schools/colleges across all six boroughs of South West London to enable children and young people to access and receive the right emotional wellbeing and mental health support and remain in education. The services could be delivered by separate organisations, by the same organisation, or by different organisations bidding in partnership to provide a cohesive service.

The service is for children and young people who have mild to moderate mental health and emotional wellbeing needs, with the service comprising of delivering three core functions: evidence-based interventions, whole school/college approaches to mental health and emotional wellbeing, and the provision of timely advice to staff on signposting to other services in scope of the Service Specification.

The proposed contract length is 3+2 years with the service specification having an indicative current cost envelope of £11.7M (without accounting for potential service efficiencies). The ICB intend to vary the service contract to include the remaining MHSTs in the future to meet the national ambition of 100% coverage by December 2029 with the indicative contract value increasing by approximately 10% per year until March 2030 to deliver this ambition. All indicative future contract values are in alignment with nationally set funding formulas directly related to the level of maturity of each commissioned MHST across South West London.

NHS South West London Integrated Care Board (the ICB) is still finalising its decision in regard to future service provision and is inviting pre-market engagement to seek the views and opinions of those organisations that may be interested in becoming involved in delivering this future service.

A draft specification for the service and a Pre-Market Engagement Questionnaire (PMEQ) is available for download at:

https://atamis-1928.my.salesforce-sites.com/ProSpend__CS_ContractPage?SearchType=Projects&uid=a07Pz00001PC9slIAD&searchStr=&sortStr=Recently+Published&page=1&filters=&County=

The Pre-Market Engagement Questionnaire (PMEQ), and any subsequent information provided in response to it, does not form an integral part of any potential future procurement exercise and should be considered as an attempt by the ICB to engage with the potential market for delivering future services;

This PMEQ, the accompanying information and the responses received arising from it are in no way legally binding on any party;

Participation in the engagement exercise is not a mandatory requirement for participating in any potential future procurement; however, responses received will assist in informing the ICB as to the level of interest from the market and will be used to evidence a decision as to whether or not to undertake a competitive procurement. CONFIRMATION OF YOUR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST IS THEREFORE IMPORTANT.

Any responses and information that are shared through this pre-market engagement exercise may be used by the ICB to inform commissioning and potential procurement strategies.

Organisations should ensure that they have read the supporting information provided prior to responding, noting that the information and any intentions shared may be subject to change (in both form and content) should the ICB decide to procure a new service.

Please provide informative, yet succinct responses. Please do NOT include additional marketing documentation.

Responses to the PMEQ should be submitted as a single document.

Please return your completed PMEQ via the Atamis e-tendering portal, by no later than 23rd March 2026 at 17:00hrs.

Atamis Portal Link:

https://atamis-1928.my.salesforce-sites.com/ProSpend__CS_ContractPage?SearchType=Projects&uid=a07Pz00001PC9slIAD&searchStr=&sortStr=Recently+Published&page=1&filters=&County= Additional information: The Pre Market engagement is being managed by the NHS London Commercial Hub (NHS LCH) hosted by NEL ICB, on behalf of NHS South West London Integrated Care Board (SWL ICB).