Essex Carers Core Offer of Support

ESSEX CARERS CORE OFFERS OF SUPPORT, AND ASSOCIATED SERVICES

1. INTRODUCTION
Essex County Council (ECC) is committed to ensuring the delivery of the most effective services for the residents of Essex, which improve outcomes and maximise opportunities, whilst ensuring best value for money for taxpayers.
Essex County Council is the second largest local authority in the United Kingdom, serving a population of over 1.5 million residents, with five acute hospitals, and a diverse range of rural and urban areas with significant coastline.
The Council currently commission county-wide specialist support services for unpaid carers aged over 18. The Council and its partners are currently examining opportunities for the ongoing provision of these services when the current contracts expire in March 2027, and this document provides a broad overview of the current position and operational demands, together with an initial market engagement to inform future contracting and decision-making.
Please note that this Market Engagement Briefing is not a Tender Specification nor is it an exhaustive list of service requirements. The purposes of this document/process are:
- To solicit interest in this service requirement and determine, with the assistance of providers, the trajectory of the sourcing project and resultant services;
- To inform the Council of the size and scope of the current market for the delivery of carer support services;
- To inform the development of the service specification for the tender/contract to ensure compatibility with market capability.
The current commissioning of carers support services contributes to the aims and objectives of the ‘Everyone's Essex’ strategy, a plan for levelling up the county from 2021 to 2025. Further information can be found at: Everyone's Essex: our plan for levelling up the county 2021 to 2025
Further commissioning will support future strategies for the support of the populus, together with the planned Local Government Reforms, as detailed in: Local Government Reorganisation (LGR) | Essex County Council
2. BACKGROUND
The 2021 Census identified the number of residents in Essex providing unpaid care as 124,000, inclusive of 2,960 young carers. 37,500 of these carers are providing 50 or more hours of care a week. It is highly likely there are many more residents In Essex providing unpaid care who do not identify themselves as carers.
Essex County Council currently operates multiple contracts for our commissioned carers services. The current core carers support provision is a countywide offer of specialist information, advice and guidance (IAG), support groups and wellbeing grants delivered by two separate lead organisations, based on the geographical cover of NHS ICBs. A further online information, advice and guidance service is delivered countywide. These services have been well received by those using the services, so the intentions are to build on the core elements of each service, whilst developing and expanding the offer in response to insights and feedback from carers on wider emerging issues and needs.
The strategic intentions are to simplify and streamline services for carers and practitioners by changing the current model from being based on the 3 existing ICB footprints to a countywide, single provider model (with the option to subcontract), with additional elements incorporated within the offer.
The aims and objectives of the services are as follows:
• To support carers to sustain their caring role where they are happy and able to do so;
• To support carers to maintain their own quality of life by focusing on their mental and physical health and wellbeing, and their ability to have a life outside of caring;
• To support carers to plan;
• To work with statutory and voluntary agencies to recognise and respect carers as expert partners;
• To promote networks of support for carers;
• To support carers to navigate the health and social care systems and voluntary support environment, and select the best solutions for them;
• To take an enabling and goal-focused approach building on what carers can do for themselves;
• To support Essex County Council, and future Essex unitary authorities, to deliver its requirements under the Care Act 2014 by preventing, reducing, and delaying needs.
Carers have been very clear about what matters to them and in delivering the service, so we expect providers to evidence that any carer who benefits from the support given will be able to articulate one or more of the following outcomes:
• I am empowered in my role as a carer;
• I have increased confidence and good self-esteem;
• I Have good health, mental wellbeing and feel safe;
• I feel cared for and respected;
• I have time for myself to do what they choose to;
• I know about my rights and entitlements;
• I know about the conditions of the person/people I care for;
• I know what support is available for me and the person/people I care for;
• I feel more able to pursue my educational and career goals.
3. FUTURE MARKET/CONTRACT CONSIDERATIONS
Essex County Council are working with partners to develop the service specification for a future tender and contract for the provision of Carers Support Services. Some key areas for consideration are:
Countywide Support – Providing consistent support to carers that is easy to access wherever they are based in the county and ensuring that there are community specific support options for carers in their local area.
Early Help – Providing the right support for carers at the right time, early on in their caring role, to enable them to continue in their caring role.
Tell It Once – Ensuring that carers do not have to tell their story multiple times when accessing support.
Innovation – Seeking continual improvement, through mutual service development and responding to need identified by continuous co-production with carers.
Digitalisation – Utilising digital and on-line methods to identify, engage and support.
Flexibility – Services that can evolve and adapt within a changing health and social care landscape with varying demands, and the changing needs of carers, being flexible to provide personalised support options for a wide range of carers.
4. FUTURE SERVICE DEMANDS
You are reminded that this Market Engagement Briefing is not a Tender Specification, nor is it an exhaustive list of service requirements and it is not intended to issue a comprehensive specification at this stage.
It is proposed that ECC go out to the market to procure a central carers support service, which will consist of the following elements below. The digital offer will be separate from the central support offer, but future tenderers will be able to bid for more than one Lot, with the aim of creating a single comprehensive service. If different providers are selected,they will be required to collaborate to ensure an equitable and consistent approach across the county.
CENTRAL SUPPORT SERVICE (LOT 1):
One-to-one specialist bespoke support for adult carers (18+ years).
This support will be outcomes-focused and goal-orientated and will include the following:
• Expert information, advice and guidance in areas such as getting a break from caring, mental health/emotional support, finance and benefits, carers assessments, loneliness and isolation, planning for the future, navigating social care and healthcare, employment and education and physical health.
• Small grants to support an activity for wellbeing, and to enable carers to get a personalised short break from their caring role.
Solution-focused approaches to support adult carers’ (18+ years) emotional wellbeing.
Solution-focused approaches will include:
• Counselling – a confidential counselling service for a limited number of sessions to enable carers to discuss the emotional impact of caring. Counsellors will draw on a range evidence-based approaches to help carers develop strategies to process and tackle issues such as anxiety and/or depression, stress, anger, guilt, grief and compassion fatigue.
• Coaching - The service will embed coaching as an approach to help provide opportunities for individuals and families to think about their options and make informed decisions for themselves. Coaches will also support carers to address specific issues in their life that are having a detrimental effect on their wellbeing or making their caring role more challenging than it needs to be. This could, for example, include supporting carers to balance the pressure of their caring role with their career or educational goals.
Programme of peer support for adult carers (18+ years).
This will include online and face to face groups, which are equitable across the county. This is a space where carers can connect with others facing similar challenges or having similar interests. These forums allow for sharing experiences, seeking advice, and building a supportive network.
Current services being explored:
Alongside the current offer for carers shown above, officers are in the process of reviewing how the current offer can respond to the emerging key themes and issues identified by the new carers strategy which is currently being developed. The future areas which are being explored for inclusion in the contract are:
• Carers Assessments – The service will carry out statutory carers’ assessments to understand the impact of caring responsibilities, identify carers’ support needs, and help them access appropriate services. Where appropriate, the service may also offer a personal budget to give carers greater choice and control, promote independence and personalisation, and support their overall wellbeing.
• A Carers Development and Learning Service – which will include working in partnership with local and national partners to facilitate workshops and courses which are aimed at supporting carers to independently and confidently sustain their caring responsibilities. The types of courses this may cover are: carers wellbeing, assertiveness workshops, legal planning, moving and handling and various other topics.
• Carers Health Breaks – Funding to provide support that enables carers to attend essential appointments (e.g., health or financial), recognizing their importance in preventing carers' health and wellbeing declining.
Lot 2: Digital Support service for adult carers (18+ years).
Online information hub
A central online platform where carers can access up to date, high quality information guidance, and resources to support in their caring role. This will include resources, signposting to local organisations, practical tools, newsletters and carers stories.
Online Peer Support Groups
Virtual spaces where carers can connect with others facing similar challenges or having similar interests. These forums allow for sharing experiences, seeking advice, and building a supportive network.
Marketing and Engagement
Virtual outreach and online marketing campaigns with the aim of identifying Essex residents who are unpaid carers. This will include mixed-method, targeted campaigns by promoting support through social media using geo-targeting and search-query based content and tools.
We will also be exploring if a joint commissioning arrangement with Health colleagues can be established to establish greater partnership working and integration of services. Due to ICB restructures currently underway, this is limited in what can be confirmed or committed at this stage in the process.
5. QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER/RESPONSE REQUIREMENT
In accordance with the information provided in this engagement briefing, participants to this engagement briefing are asked to provide responses to the following questions:
A. Service Model
a) What are your thoughts on the proposed service model, and what similar models have you seen applied by other local authorities (if any)?
b) Are there any innovations or elements which you feel are currently missing from the proposed service model which would help deliver the aims/objectives/outcomes listed in Section 2 (background)?
c) Not being able to have a break has consistently been an issue reported by many carers. Do you have any recommendations on how this could be commissioned as part of this service based on your experience?
d) Are there any elements that would be challenging to deliver, both operationally and financially?
e) What challenges would you envisage in resourcing/staffing a service to address the needs detailed in Section 4 (Future Service Demands)?
f) Further to d), what investments (e.g. I.T., etc.) might need to be made to deliver services of this nature?
g) Would your organisation be able to deliver both lots listed in Section 4 (Future Service Demands), either directly or via subcontracting/consortium/partnership arrangements?
h) Would you be interested in delivering the services on a countywide footprint? Or would you have concerns given the size of Essex? What challenges would a single countywide service create?
Participants should be aware that any information provided as part of this engagement process will be treated with confidentiality and will only be used to inform the final specification and to improve the subjectivity of any decision-making processes between the Council and its partners.
Although full support from market participants is appreciated, participants will not be bound by their responses and any information provided will not form part of any future procurement evaluation processes.
6. NEXT STAGES
This market engagement document has been formally released on 21st November 2025, with the release of a formal Preliminary Market Engagement Notice, in line with Procurement Act 2023.
Participants are requested to submit any responses through the Proactis portal by 12pm on Friday 12th December 2025.
Please include contact details for those submitting a response to this engagement process. Should Essex County Council need to clarify any elements of your response, a representative of the project team will use this information for contact purposes.
Essex County Council may seek to engage directly with any/all participants to this process in order to clarify information provided and to ensure any tender/contract specification is optimised in accordance with service provider input. It is planned that this element of provider engagement and specification development will take place through market engagement events next spring (method/location to be confirmed), and participants are requested to indicate whether or not they are interested in attending these meetings to support the development of the Council’s future requirements.