Transferring Care for 3 individuals with a Learning Disability and/or are autistic who display behaviours that challenge, including those with a mental health condition into Nixon Street-NHS Cheshire & Merseyside ICB

Description

NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit are working as an agent on behalf of NHS Cheshire & Merseyside Integrated Care Board (ICB) who are looking to undertake a procurement for the provision of transferring care for 3 individuals with a learning disability and/or are autistic who display behaviours that challenge, including those with a mental health condition into Nixon Street for patients from Cheshire East Place. This Procurement is to identify a provider to provide care and support services for those individuals who have been identified for the Nixon Street property. initially Nixon Street capital was secured for Cheshire East individuals with a Learning Disability and/or autistic people with behaviours that challenge due to Cheshire East having no suitable accommodation adapted for people with autism and challenging behaviours that offers self-contained accommodation, with specialist adaptations and care. However, this facility will also be able to support individuals being discharged from Cheshire and Wirral Partnership so could be used by Cheshire West and Wirral individuals to ensure the facility is fully occupied and therefore provides value for money. There is also the opportunity to repatriate individuals back into area from Independent Sector facilities should there be capacity. Whilst the facility will prioritise individuals from Cheshire East initially, priority will be given to individuals from the below places, in the below order: a) Cheshire East b) Cheshire West c) Wirral d) New patients being discharged from hospital or repatriating back to area Following this, the ICB would then look to prioritise individuals from other Places across Cheshire and Merseyside ICB Footprint. Nixon Street is a substantial property located in Macclesfield, in close proximity to the town centre. It's location is near the main district general hospital (MDGH) and in short walking distance to the Learning Disability Community Team and Macclesfield Mental Health Services. NHS England (NHSE) have previously provided substantial capital for the renovation of Nixon Street and are looking to handover to the landlord by the end of February 2026, therefore it's key that this service provision is in place to support the mobilisation of the property to support rehabilitation from 1st March 2026. The scheme has been developed specifically for 3 individuals with a Learning Disability and/or Autism who display behaviours that challenge, including those with a mental health condition from the Cheshire area. It has been historically very difficult to find suitable placements for those individuals which can contribute to readmissions and placement breakdowns. This procurement is to provide supportive ongoing clinical care to those individuals who have been discharged from Acute settings. The ICB's focus is to provide homes for people in the community rather than relying on out of area housing pathways once the individual's rehabilitation and treatment has been completed. The Transforming Care programme aims to improve the lives of children, young people and adults with a learning disability and/or autism who display behaviours that challenge, including those with amental health condition. The programme has three key aims: • To improve quality of care for people with learning disability and/or autism • To improve quality of life for people with a learning disability and/or autism • To enhance community capacity, thereby reducing inappropriate hospital admissions and length of stay. The Contract is currently planned to start 1st March 2026. The contract will be for 3 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years, until 28th February 2031. Lot 1: The Invitation to Tender will be live on Wednesday 5th November 2025 on the Atamis Portal. The deadline for submissions will be Friday 5th December 2025 12:00pm. To express interest and participate in the Competitive Process, please register and apply via Atamis e-sourcing portal https://atamis-1928.my.site.com/s/Welcome. Should Tenderers have any queries, or have problems using the portal, they should contact the Helpdesk at: Phone: 0800 098 8201 E-mail: support-health@atamis.co.uk The Atamis contract reference is C391643 'C&M Transferring Care for 3 individuals into Nixon Street'. The highest maximum possible variable financial value is £26,800,000.00, based on 3 individuals needing the maximum 5:1 support at the Tier 4 rate for 5 years (3 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years). Please note, it is unlikely that all 3 individuals will need 5:1 support. The overall maximum fixed block rate for this tender is £6,119,705.00 (for 3 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years), based on 2:1 support for each individual in the first year. This will be the figure used to assess the bids financially. There may be some fluctuations in the package requirements stepping down for one individual, as it's expected the support needed will reduce during the contract period. Any bid whose overall cost is higher than the overall maximum block rate of £6,119,705.00 for the total 5-year contract (3 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years), will be viewed as non-compliant and will take no further part in the procurement exercise. In addition, any bid whose annual block costs are higher than the maximum annual block rate for each year shown below, will also be viewed as non-compliant and will take no further part in the procurement exercise. This will be done during the evaluation of the Pass / Fail criteria stage (please see procurement document Annex 7 Evaluation Model, section 3.10(b) for details). The maximum annual block rate financial values are as below: Year 1 - £1,653,524.00 Year 2 - £1,116,545.00 Year 3 - £1,116,545.00 Year 4 - £1,116,545.00 Year 5 - £1,116,545.00. There will need to be flexibility regarding the packages should there be a change in the clinical need for one or more of the package, these changes will be based on the individual's needs and matched to the level of staffing required to support these needs as contained in the Annex 13 Tiered Rates document provided with the tender documents. The cost analysis will be based on the lowest overall price submitted for the fixed block contract (under £6,119,705.00 for the total 5-year contract (3 years with an option to extend for a further 2 years). The 5 year total will be evaluated. The questionnaires will be located within the requirements. Further details will be made available via documentation and information released during the tender process. The ICB has evaluated this service and considers it to be a mixed procurement, in line with Provider Selection Regime (PSR) Regulation 3, with the main benefits of the overall health service placing this key service under Provider Selection Regime for the arrangement of Healthcare services where: the main subject matter of the contract is in-scope healthcare services; and the relevant authority is of the view that the out of scope goods or services could not reasonably be supplied under a separate contract (that is, where procuring goods or services separately would likely prevent the relevant authority from meeting its duty to act in accordance with the procurement principles).