Work Well - Shaw Trust

Description

There are now 2.8million economically inactive people with long term sickness in the UK and 22% of working age adults aged 16 to 64. The WorkWell programme has been established to support people with disabilities and health conditions to start, stay and thrive at work. The proposal for 2025 to 2026 is to provide work and health coaching to support 2100 participants with a disability or health condition to start work if unemployed, or to remain in employment if they have been signed off work due to sickness. The programme is split into three phases: (1) The Implementation period: 7th May 2024 - 30th September 2024 involved developing our plans, developing communications and referral mechanisms. (2) Recruit and support 900 participants 1st October 2024 - 31st March 2025 - The service went live in October 2024 for an initial 6-month period and was delivered through a partnership between the Shaw Trust and Working Well Trust. (3) Recruit and Support 2100 participants To meet the next requirement for the funding laid down by DWP, the ICB requires a service to be fully mobilised from 1 April 2025 which will run until 31 Mar 2026. Although 60% of funding is up front, 40% of this is participant dependant - so suppliers need to meet a monthly target of 525 starts per quarter in order to receive the maximum funding. As a vanguard, NCL will contribute to the national learning programme to enable development of a sustainable WorkWell service across the country as well as develop and deliver a Work And Health Strategy by May 2025, both of these elements are outside the scope of this procurement. Lot 1: An urgent contract award is needed to renew the current contract and continue the delivery of the WorkWell programme from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) for 12 months. The commissioner believes that there is only one provider who would be able to mobilise the service fully by 1 April 2025 across all 5 NCL Boroughs, these being the timescales laid down by DWP. This decision is also linked to the requirement for a central staff team of Work and Health Coaches to be in post by 1st April 2025 to accept referrals and work with participant starts immediately, to achieve quarterly target numbers. A further requirement is to have mobilised a Multi-Disciplinary Team by 1st April 2025 to provide Work & Health Coaches with specific employment and clinical advice as required, to enable local residents to be given the most appropriate support to start, stay and thrive at work. The payment terms offered is quarterly in arrears and 40% of funding is dependent on meeting targets.