Breastfeeding Support Services

Description

Koala North West are a local third sector charity organisation. Our partnership has directly improved the maintained Breastfeeding for families in Cheshire West and Chester due to Koala's management and delivery of a group of skilled volunteers who support infant feeding and early relationships. The evidence base (Best Start in Life 2022) shows us that early relationships build lifelong benefits both physically and emotionally. Koala's volunteer model in unique, and well respected in the area. Patient feedback in September 2025 highlighted the positive impact that Koala's groups, phone calls, and social media have delivered to our families when they need it under delegation with effective governance. The commissioner of Starting Well 0-19 services endorses the service level agreement between CWP and Koala recognising both the clinical benefits but also the social value - the opportunity for local people to volunteer, retrain, and support their communities. The cost of the agreement with Koala is the average cost of one specialist nurse a year, one nurse could not cover the same level of advice and guidance, group delivery and overall breastfeeding support on such scale. The specialist nurse time of those in post is more available for other targeted and specialist delivery that is not appropriate for skill mixed delivery due to the support of this partnership. As incumbent providers, Koala possess the necessary human and technical resources and experience to perform the contract to an appropriate quality standard. Lot 1: Koala is a charity organisation who look after the wellbeing of families offering practical support and solutions to everyday parenting. They offer a diverse range of services and support programmes across Cheshire & Merseyside. They sit aside the Council Contract provided by CWP and work hand in hand with child services. This is a Provider Selection Regime (PSR) intention to award notice. The awarding of this contract is subject to the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of the Procurement Act 2023 do not apply to this award. The standstill period begins on the day after the publication of this notice. Representations by providers must be made to decision makers by 26th January 2026 to cwp.contracts@nhs.net. This contract has not yet formally been awarded; this notice serves as an intention to award under the PSR. 1st April 2026 - 30th June 2027 - £75,000