1091 - Home-to-Assess Care Services

Essex County Council (the Council) works with NHS Partners to jointly commission a number of services which make up the Intermediate Care pathway, for people who require short term support at home, at the point of hospital discharge, community referral, or to avoid admission into hospital. These services currently include a range of contracted and uncontracted reablement and domiciliary care provisions.

The ambition for Intermediate Care in Essex has been developed via a “Future of Intermediate Care” programme, in collaboration with system partners, and informed by people accessing support. It aims for people to experience: ‘a truly integrated and collaborative model that provides improved outcomes and better value for the individual to promote independence’. This means delivering improved and more seamless pathways, inclusivity and coordination between suppliers, to ensure that the best possible outcomes are achieved for everyone.

There are various component services within Intermediate Care in Essex. As part of the Council’s commitment to helping people either avoid going into hospital or have a smooth journey out of hospital and back into independence, the Council provides a ‘Home-to-Assess’ service as part of a wider Intermediate Care offer alongside, Recovery-to-Home beds and Reablement-at-Home. Intermediate Care Services provide support for a short time to help an adult recover and increase their independence.

The Home-to-Assess (H2A) service will:?

Provide a rapid response service to support an adult and prevent hospital admission and avoid a bedded setting, or until an alternative care provider or service (including reablement) is able to meet the care needs of the adult;?

Support exits from Urgent Care Response Service (UCRS) if it is determined that the adult is not suitable to go directly for Reablement;

Provide support for two weeks in the adult’s own home;

Provide support in line with needs of the adult and be adequately flexible to ensure that the Adult is supported appropriately and with a reablement ethos, encouraging independence;

Integrate with support services that may provide nursing intervention, therapy, or other additional community services to the individual as part of a multi-disciplinary approach;

The Council are also planning to identify therapy resources, to support assessments at home in the earliest stages of the referral care, to support the care and improve outcomes from the H2A service.

A Preliminary Market Engagement process, in accordance with Section 16 of the Procurement Act 2023, is being conducted to provide input from the current market in respect to the Service Specification and ensure compatibility with the required deliverables of the service.

A draft Service Specification, which will be finalised prior to the commencement of the tender process and with information provided during this Preliminary Market Engagement process is being issued during this market engagement stage. This specification is provided for information and contextual purposes only and this is not an invitation to tender for the services at this time, and those participants who later choose to bid for the delivery of these services should not rely on this draft specification for latter contracting purposes.

This Home-to-Assess service forms part of the Council’s statutory responsibility to provide Intermediate Care services. These services, and similar services to be replaced by this H2A model, are currently contracted across Essex, as either a trial H2A service (in North Essex) or short-term bridging services (in Mid, South and West Essex). All services are currently contracted with either private sector care agencies or NHS Acute Trusts.