Issue - meetings

[Report of the Director of Adults and Health. To be introduced by the Cabinet Member for Adults and Health]

This report considers the variation of the contract value with Medequip Assistive Technologies over the next 3 years.

The Cabinet Member for Adults and Health introduced this report which considered the variation of the contract value with Medequip Assistive Technologies over the next 3 years.

The Cabinet Member highlighted that the provision of community equipment supported vulnerable people and their families to maintain healthy, safe and independent lives within their own homes, reducing the need for more complex and costly care, helping support the Council’s budget position. It was therefore positive that demand and therefore the volumes of equipment provided have increased and the proposal in this paper will enable this to continue for the next three years.

RESOLVED

1. To approve variation of the contract value over the next 3 years, increasing it by £3.6million (£1.2m per year), from April 2020 to March 2023.

2. To approve a two-year extension of the contract from April 2021 to March 2023.

Reasons for decision

Cabinet originally approved a contract value of £5 million in February 2017 for the 4-year duration of the contract ending March 31^st, 2021, with the option to extend for a further 1+1 years or 7.2m over the full term

Since then;

• Additional services have been granted permission to procure through this contract, namely Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND), Paediatric Therapy Team at Whittington and Community Alarm Team (CAS) who procure their stock through the contract.
• Additional community equipment has also been made available to facilitate hospital discharges, prevent hospital admissions and to enable the residents of Haringey to remain in their home environment. Equipment includes, specialist Chairs, the Installation of key safes and manual Hoists.

All of the above contributed to a 22% increase in spend across the wholecontract from £1.34 million in 2017-18 to £1.64 million in 2018-19. The current year 2019-20 has projected a further 10% an increase to £1.8 million.

Of the £1.64 million spent in 2018-19 only £614,000 was attributable to Adult Social Care with the remaining (£1.02 million) being re-charged back to other services namely;

• Haringey CCG - £839,000
• Community Alarm Services - £77,000
• Special Educational Needs & Disabilities - £62,000
• Whittington Paediatric Therapies - £47,000

The CCG figure of £839,000 represents an increase in spending of 16% from the previous financial year as opposed to just over a 1% increase by Adult Social Care. Therefore, it is expected that any increased spending will be attributable to the CCG and they will be recharged accordingly.

Given the reasons already highlighted, the original value will not suffice until the end of the contract.

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Alternative options considered

The London Consortium completed an options appraisal where re-tendering was considered. However, given the price efficiencies, value for money and quality of delivery demonstrated it was concluded that this would not be beneficial option and would risk disrupting service provision.