NHS South Yorkshire ICB - Digital Inclusion Programme

Description

NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board (the ‘Authority') intends to enter into a two-year contract with a local charity organisation to lead the provision of a strong social infrastructure network and co-ordinate a comprehensive digital inclusion programme across South Yorkshire. <br/><br/>Our intention is to enter contract with one partner without competition during the period 1st April to 31st March 2026 as detailed below:<br/><br/>Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) Doncaster Civic Office, Waterdale, Doncaster, DN1 3BU<br/><br/>Our decision to partner with Citizens Advice Bureau Doncaster has been based on their involvement in the Doncaster Digital Inclusion Programme and their existing presence in all four places in South Yorkshire through the South Yorkshire Citizens Advice Network, with well-established locations and relationships with wider partners. CAB are well known, trusted and well respected by our local population, which is imperative for co-ordination of activity on such a large scale.<br/><br/>This programme will enable us to provide equitable and co-ordinated support to our South Yorkshire population, ensuring targeted support to our most deprived and marginalised communities, such as individuals living in poverty or low income, the homeless, the Gypsy Roma Traveller community, older age groups, and people with long-term health conditions. Lot 1: Although we acknowledge there may be other providers interested in providing this service, we feel this may cause delays, possible duplication and disruption in service. Their well-established relationships in the region has been an important part of our decision making as these have been formed over a long period of time, and may take a new provider months, or even years to achieve similar trust and respect which will be key to achieving successful outcomes for this programme.<br/><br/>The full contract value will be £747,000 spread over two years. <br/><br/>NHS South Yorkshire ICB has seen excellent outcomes for the local population of Doncaster via a locally manged Digital Inclusion programme working closely with community, voluntary and statutory partners. Doncaster partners have worked closely together to build up a strong local network; combining skills and resources and following a trusted referral partner model to provide flexible support to people in Doncaster to navigate through our increasingly digital society and way of living. Our aim is to implement this approach across South Yorkshire using one partner to co-ordinate the networks and activity, working closely with partners in Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham and Sheffield. This programme is very likely to include the management and oversight of a regional device bank, including managing receipt of donated devices to offer members of our population access to refurbished equipment to help them stay connected in an increasingly digital society.<br/><br/>Our intention to partner with Citizens Advice Bureau Doncaster has gained strong support from our South Yorkshire Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises (VCSE) Alliance. This programme and our plans to co-produce the programme deliverables will help to build closer relationships and collaboration between our different sectors and will ensure a greater impact in our local communities. Our desire to work more closely with the VCSE sector to improve outcomes and improved standard of living has been well documented as a high priority in our recent South Yorkshire Integrated Care Partnership Strategy and NHS Joint Forward Plan for South Yorkshire.<br/><br/>This programme is being funded with non-recurrent money which has very challenging timescales and has not allowed us sufficient time to run an open tender process.