Issue - meetings

The purpose of the report is to give an overview of the Virgin Care contract; Virgin Cares performance against national and local standards and also key performance indicators, and, the governance arrangements in place to ensure these are delivered.

The Director of Adult Social Care, Complex and Specialist Commissioning and the Head of Contracting & Performance introduced this report to the Panel.

The Director of Adult Social Care, Complex and Specialist Commissioning explained that the report was intentionally long and sought to address the queries raised previously by Protect our NHS BANES.

She summarised the following points from the report.

Between January and December 2015, BaNES Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and B&NES Council carried out a review of community heath and care services for children, young people and adults.  The review, known as Your Care, Your Way, looked at the wide range of services providing care and support in people’s homes and communities.

The top five priorities identified through the engagement process with our residents were:

1.  A person not a condition

2.  A single plan

3.  Invest in the workforce

4.  Join up the information

5.  Focus on prevention

Over 200 different community services were within the scope of the Your Care, Your Way review which were provided by over 60 different organisations.  The commissioning and contract management of these services were at the time of the review all carried out by the CCG and Council.

Following the identification of the priorities of our local population, a new approach to contracting community services was identified as being required. A detailed assessment was undertaken and legal guidance sought; this resulted in the ‘prime provider model’ being chosen as the best contracting method for delivering the community’s priorities.  Under this model, the CCG and Council would enter into a contract with a single prime provider and this organisation would have responsibility for the delivery and coordination of services, they would also have sub-contracting responsibility for some specialist, third sector provider and small and medium-sized enterprises (SME’s).

In addition to the five priorities (listed above) identified through public consultation the following three areas also formed part of the assessment used during the procurement:

1.  Social value

2.  Value for money and affordability

3.  Delivering transformational change

The Virgin Care contract is a seven-year contract which commenced from 1st April 2017 to 31st March 2024 with the option to extend the contract term by three years (2024/2025, 2025/2026 and 2026/2027). 

The Council have the co-ordinating commissioning role for the contract and currently the contract is made up of a total of 56 community services:

•  36 delivered directly by Virgin Care

•  14 services are sub-contracted

•  6 services are delivered by both Virgin Care and a sub-contractor

Three of the 36 services directly delivered by Virgin Care cannot be sub-contracted at any point whereas the other 33 can be via negotiation in line with contract regulations. The three which must be delivered by Virgin Care (referred to as delegated functions) are:

•  PD1 Adult Social Care Statutory Services

•  PD2 Continuing Healthcare

•  PD3 Children’s Health Statutory Services

The Virgin Care contract is organised through the following contract governance structure:

Contract Quality Performance Meeting (CQPM) – Bi-monthly

Finance and Information Group  ...  view the full minutes text for item 52