Provision of an Integrated Community Equipment and Wheelchair Service to the Rotherham population.

NHS Rotherham CCG and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council are seeking suitably experienced providers for an Integrated Community Equipment and Wheelchair Service.

The Integrated Equipment and Wheelchair Service in Rotherham will provide service users with the equipment that they need to stay independent and to live at home. The Service will provide information and advice to service users about equipment use.

Equipment will be provided on loan to people living in the community, which is defined as where the service user is staying in Rotherham, such as their own home, with family on short term basis, a residential care home or intermediate care facility.

The Provider will source, procure, deliver, install/demonstrate, repair, service, recover, decontaminate and refurbish equipment for children, young people and adults living in the community in Rotherham.

The Service will appropriately enable service users to self-fund the purchase of equipment.

The Service will facilitate the purchasing of Special Equipment (i.e. not standard stock) through a panel attended by (amongst others) a representative from the Commissioning organisation.

The wheelchair element of the service will assess service users’ needs for specialist assistive technology and will coordinate the provision of the equipment. The equipment will aid independent use of wheelchairs and associated equipment including communication aids, environmental control computers and wheelchair propulsion. It will also offer rehabilitation programmes for postural management and correction to service users with complex and chronic problems and provide advice, guidance and support to health professionals and others, on the range of available wheelchairs, special seating and associated items, their technical specification and suitability for service users need.

NHS Rotherham Clinical Commissioning Group and Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council recognise that an effective contract for this service must be one that can develop and improve over time, and to that end the Provider is required to consider and plan how it will respond to future initiatives and developments.

We are keen to engage with Providers who may be able, during the term of the Contract, to offer a range of Services that cover the following areas:

1) Telecare, telehealth and assistive technology;

2) Provision of a maintenance service for Tissue Viability Equipment and for Childrens Equipment (including Specialised);

3) Mobile technologies and apps;

4) Promoting self-funding opportunities and direct payments/ personal health budgets including upgrading or choosing specific models;

5) The use of Personal Wheelchair Budgets;

6) Using the equipment service as part of integrated care planning and community support work;

7) Services to special schools and colleges;

8) An online self-assessment tool/process that people can use to access unbiased and reliable information and advice about independent living and community equipment available on the retail market;

9) Development of an ‘out of hours’ service;

10) Implementation of seven day working;

11) To ensure that every item of equipment is specified as health or social care equipment;

12) To implement a system whereby any items of very low value equipment are paid for by the service user.