Provision of Services as part of the Medway Voluntary Community Sector Better Together Consortium

Description

Medway Council wish to procure a new Medway VCS Better Together Consortium service. The contract forms a collaborative working partnership to support and improve life outcomes for Medway residents and a resilient Voluntary Community Sector within Medway. The services are divided into 4 Lots: • Lot 1 Infrastructure to support the VCS Organisations in Medway, to support a resilient and thriving VCS. • Lot 2 Local Healthwatch Medway, to support the provision of an independent patient voice. • Lot 3 Adult and Young Carers Support Services, that supports: o Information, Guidance and Advice for Carers. o A Young Carers support service, that ensures young carers are not undertaking inappropriate caring roles. o Carers Support Payments, which enable both adults and young carers to take respite or to reach their life goals and to live independent healthy lives and avoid a crisis. • Lot 4 Children’s and Adults Visually Impaired (VI) Support and Information Service, which will maintain the VI Registers and supports independent living, rehabilitation, and prevention of age-related eye conditions. The Medway VCS Better Together Consortium key objectives are: • One set of mutually agreed Key Performance Indicators. • A single point of contact to address relevant issues, risks and opportunities. • Strategic outcomes achieved by effective collaborative working relationships. • Maximum use of community resource. • The creation of a mutually agreed collaborative Action Plan. Lot 1: The overall objective of the service is to support the VCS in Medway to develop as organisations, represent their views and enable them to carry out their activities more effectively. This includes providing a voice for the voluntary and community sector, facilitating partnerships, and raising the profile of the sector, and supporting the sector with back-office functions, capacity building both for volunteering and income generation. Lot 2: Medway Council are looking to commission a Local Healthwatch who will be proactive in working, across the Health and Care Partnership, with council officers, social care providers, the health and PCN and with VCS organisations. Ensuring that the right services are directed to where they are most needed. Use of Public Health data will enable focus to be on the most deprived and remote wards and those with the greatest health inequality, ethnic diversity, the older population, and people living with long term conditions. Lot 3: The service will support adults and young Carers at any stage of their caring journey, from a recent diagnosis, natural ageing, through to end of life. The support will continue to be available following the death of the cared for person, until the carer no longer requires the support. With support offered in a variety of locations, including virtually and face to face and areas that are hard to reach. The service will ensure the right adult and young carers services, advice and information and unpaid respite carers respite is available to Medway adult and young carers. Lot 4: The overall objective is to maintain and administer the Visual Impairment Registers for both adult and young people in Medway as a statutory obligation. The Provider will be flexible to support new legislation with regard to the Curriculum Framework for Children and Young People with Vision Impairment, which is in development, via a possible future contract variation, depending on the requirements set out in legislation.