Specialised counselling for pregnancy-related bereavement and baby loss across Suffolk and north east Essex.

Description

Intention is to commission a specialised bereavement counselling service that meets the needs of women or the birthing person and their partners, who are experiencing mild to moderate mental health distress because of pregnancy-related bereavement or baby loss. Access to the service will be provided via professional referral and self-referral. The service is accessible following a stillbirth, second trimester miscarriage, terminations for medical reasons, recurrent miscarriages, neonatal loss, birth trauma, pregnancy after loss, and early miscarriage (by professional referral only). A fixed number of counselling sessions will be provided either virtually or face-to-face based on parent choice. Lot 1: The counselling service focusses on supporting women, birthing people and their partners who are experiencing mild to moderate mental health distress following a stillbirth, second trimester miscarriage, termination for medical reasons, recurrent miscarriages, neonatal loss, birth trauma, pregnancy after loss or early miscarriage (accessed only via professional referral). Access will be by professional referral or self-referral basis. The delivery model will involve a triage session followed (if required) by a fixed number of counselling sessions. Patient outcomes will be captured using Core10 as an assessment method, with a minimum key performance benchmark of 50% for Reliable Improvement. By providing support for mild to moderate mental following pregnancy-related loss support, this specialist service will become embedded in the commissioned perinatal mental health pathway within the integrated care system. Contract period will be 01/10/2025 to 31/09/2028, there will be no option to extend the contract. NHS Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Board are awarding the contract named within this notice under the Direct Award C process which is outlined within the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. The provider named in this notice is an existing provider and has been reviewed through a Key Criteria assessment to ensure the awarding body is satisfied with current performance and reasonably expects the provider to be able to satisfy the contract which is the subject of this notice. The contract which is the subject of this notice has not changed considerably when compared with the existing / previous contract delivered by the named provider. The ICB may wish to introduce additional services during the lifetime of the contract ("Contract modifications"). Such contract modifications will be contemplated where additional requirements are similar and or complementary to the services already included in the Specification, at any given time. Such expansion would be by the addition of services commissioned by the Authority as named in the Contract Notice. To this end, after the award of contract, there is a possibility that the contract may be varied as allowable in accordance with the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023.