Purpose

To approve the tender to commence and contract
award for a block contract of care home beds which will commence
from April 2024

Decision

That:
 

a)   
Approval is given to progress with option 2 in Appendix 3 of this
report to commission thirty block purchased care home beds across
Herefordshire for a period of up to 5 years with a maximum spend up
to £6.82million.
 

b)   
Delegated authority be given to the Corporate Director for
Community Wellbeing to take all operational decisions required to
implement the above recommendation including all contractual
arrangement.
 
 

Alternative options considered

1 Do nothing. This is not recommended as the
fees for spot purchased care home beds are rising.
 
2 Commission a smaller number of block care
home beds. This could address some of the challenges of finding
care home placements but this is not recommended given the rising
costs of spot fees and the impact of this on the Community
Wellbeing directorate budget.
 
3 Go out to market and purchase more block
care home beds. This may be an option in the longer term, but there
are some risks attached to this proposal in the short term due to
the high projected value of the contracts and the need to resource
the monitoring of utilisation of these block contracts.