£800,000 Shropshire health contracts up for bids
Bids are being invited for an £800,000 contract to run two organisations representing Shropshire’s patients.
Shropshire Council has opened up a tender process for the running of a local Healthwatch group, and an independent health complaints advocacy service.
The contract for the services will be worth around £162,000 a year, over five years, with a total estimated value of £810,000.
Healthwatch Shropshire is described as the health and social care champion for people and local communities in the county. It is intended to make sure people get the best from their health and social care services.
The organisation regularly carries out research on health services in the county and people’s experience of them.
The tender document states: “Healthwatch Shropshire will be influential in the health and social care ‘landscape’ in Shropshire and will have productive relationships with a wide range of stakeholders across the county including, but not limited to, the local authority, health bodies, GP practices, patient and service user representative groups, service providers, voluntary & community groups and organisations and the general public.
“Healthwatch Shropshire will have mutually beneficial strategic and operational relationships with neighbouring local Healthwatch and other local organisations as appropriate. Opportunities will be sought to make the most efficient use of resources with other local Healthwatch, for example sharing expertise, intelligence and/or other resources.”
The independent health complaints advocacy service is for people who wish to resolve complaints about healthcare commissioned and/or provided by the NHS in Shropshire.
IHCAS can also support people to resolve complaints about health services commissioned and delivered by an NHS provider within another local area.
The tender document states: “IHCAS will need to link closely to local Healthwatch organisations, in particular Healthwatch Shropshire. Due to the close geographical links and shared NHS services, it is also important that the IHCAS for Shropshire shares learning with the IHCAS covering the Telford & Wrekin Council area.”
