Deprivation of Liberty Safeguarding (DoLS) Services Including Best Interest (BIA) and Mental Health ...

The Isle of Wight Council (“the authority”) invites Tenders from suitably qualified suppliers (“potential suppliers”) for the provision of deprivation of liberty safeguarding (DoLS) services including best interest (BIA) and mental health assessments (MHA).

The Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards provide a statutory framework for making decisions on behalf of people who lack the mental capacity to do so, including to authorise the deprivation of liberty in care homes and hospitals. In 2014 the Supreme Court issued a formal definition of ‘deprivation of liberty’ (the acid test), which resulted in a significant increase of applications for managing authorities under the DoLS. In line with other supervisory bodies, the authority has had insufficient capacity to manage these increased requests and as a result a backlog of requests has built up, therefore, the authority is now seeking to work with independent providers of DoLS assessments to deal with these outstanding assessments.

The Scope of the services are to provide a complete start to finish DoLS assessment process to the point of authorisation, to include:
• Best Interests Assessor reports on age, no refusals, mental capacity and best interests assessments;
• Mental Health Assessor reports on mental health, mental capacity (unless included in BIA report) and eligibility assessments;
• Scrutiny of all reports to ensure compliance with legal requirements and whether criteria for deprivation of liberty are met;
• Preparation of formal authorisation (Form 5) or refusal of authorisation (form 6);
• Identification of Relevant Person’s Representative and / or need for IMCA.

The budget allocation for this commission is £220,000 and potential suppliers will need to demonstrate that they are able to as a minimum will be the backlog of high and medium priority assessments that have been identified by the authority.

The term of the contract shall be 12 February 2018 until 31 March 2019 with the option to extend for up to a further 12 months at the sole discretion of the authority and shall be available to call off tranches of assessments at the discretion of the authority.

The initial tranche required under this contract shall commence on the 12 February 2018 and will end when the high and medium priority assessments, and as many of the low priority assessments as the funding and timescales will allow. Time is of the essence and potential suppliers will be required to demonstrate how they can complete the initial tranche of assessments as quickly and efficiently as possible.