Decision details

The decision was taken to enter into the following contracts for the supply of domiciliary care services to residents of Slough.

New Contracts

Contracts with an initial term of 3 years duration plus a discretionary extended term of 2 years have been entered into with the following organisations with a commencement date of 1st December 2024.

1. Addison Care Ltd
2. Best Choice Care Ltd
3. Bright Future Care Ltd
4. Capital Care Resources Ltd
5. Care Managers Ltd
6. Hippo Care Ltd
7. Loddon Healthcare Ltd
8. Moonlight Homecare Ltd
9. Prestige Nursing & Care
10. RMH Care Ltd
11. Slough Crossroads Caring for Carers
12. Upton Care Plus Ltd
13. Eleanor Nursing and Social Care

Contract Extensions

Contract extensions for a period of 2 years have been entered into with the following providers from the dates shown below.

14. Avant Healthcare Ltd from 2 September 2024 .
15. Prime Way Care Ltd from 2 September 2024
16. Quest Recovery Services Ltd from 2 September 2024
17. WR Services Ltd from 2 September 2024

Direct Award

A new period of contract by direct award from 1 December 2024 has been entered into for 2 years initial duration with a discretionary 1 year extended period with

18. Westminster Homecare Ltd transfer of hours previously delivered by:
• Excellent Healthcare Services Ltd
• City Home Care Ltd
• Care Staff Services Ltd
• Maverick Care Ltd T/A Walfinch

Contract Variations

To accommodate the urgency associated with the transfer of hours from exiting providers the following contract variations have been entered into:

19. Avant Healthcare Ltd from 1 December 2024 transfer of hours previously delivered by:

• Care Staff Services Ltd,
• Citibase Slough(Red Brick Care),
• City Home Care Ltd.
• K Care Nursing Agency Ltd
• The Leading Care Company

20. Endurance Health Ltd from 1 December 2024 transfer of hours previously delivered by

• Care Staff Services Ltd
• G. R Response Healthcare Ltd

21. Quest Recovery Services Ltd from 1 December 2024 transfer of hours previously delivered by

• City Home Care Ltd
• G. R Response Healthcare Ltd

22. Surecare Slough Ltd from 1 December 2024 transfer of hours previously delivered by

• City Home Care Ltd

23. Best Choice Care Ltd from 1 December 2024 transfer of hours previously delivered by

• Care Staff Services

24. Care Outlook Ltd from 1 December 2024 transfer of hours previously delivered by

• Care Staff Services

Currently, demand for domiciliary care services is increasing due to a combination of factors:

• ASC policy to support people to live independently at home for as long as possible
• demographic growth
• need to manage hospital discharge and get people back home at a time when hospital capacity is challenged on a daily basis period.

The Council has a duty to ensure sufficiency of supply under s5 of The Care Act 2014 for those residents who are assessed under s9 of the same Act as eligible and in need of such services.

Seven providers exited our market at the end of November as they failed in the tender referenced below.

A further four providers who failed to bid within the three tranches of re-procurement and have continued to provide services to Slough residents under implied terms have also exited our market at the end of November.
In addition, five care providers are embargoed and no new referrals can be made due to significant quality concerns identified by SBC’s Provider

Quality Assurance team.

This is impacting in the immediate short term on the sufficiency of supply, given the delay in onboarding new providers who were successful at Tranche 3 (providers 1 – 13)

Tranche 3 Procurement

In relation to contracts 1-12 above, the decision enacts the delegated authority provided at the Cabinet Meeting of 17th June 2024 regarding re-procurement of domiciliary care services, with a variance of start date to accommodate pre-mobilisation processes.
NB - 2 providers who were successful at tender failed further financial due diligence checks as part of onboarding and contracts will not be awarded.

In relation to contract 13 following an appeal, a review of the evaluation scoring awarded to the provider during the procurement exercise resulted in the provider passing the quality threshold.

Contract Extensions

In relation to contracts 14 - 17 additional capacity required from existing contracted providers through the discretionary extension (plus 2 years) from September 2024 of existing contracts to supply.

Delegated authority provided by the Executive Director and Lead Member, 21 September 2024

Direct Award

In relation to contract 18 – additional capacity was required at pace to support the transfer of work from all providers whose contracts terminated on 30th November 2024.

Timescales were much tighter than originally expected with only 28 days to accommodate a transfer of approx. 2000 hours of care per week following delays in reviews of customers operationally.
This was exacerbated further by exiting providers who retained their staffing rather than enacting TUP(E) transfer, which meant that many existing providers operating in our local market were unable to accommodate the transfer of hours as no staff were transferring across with customers.

As it became apparent that staffing would be an issue the numbers of providers able to accept transfers of work were much lower than expected.
Delays in onboarding new providers post tender meant that they were unable to mobilise staffing in time to accept transfers of work.

Following advice from HB Law additional due diligence was undertaken in relation to Westminster Home Care including.

a) Capacity to deliver
b) Financial checks to confirm that the company is financially sound
c) Safeguarding and quality issues – references sought from the Host Authority (Buckinghamshire)
d) Meeting care standards- latest CQC inspection report.

Westminster Homecare are assessed by CQC as outstanding, are able to deploy local staff (who are Slough residents) quickly from other contracts, and are an approved first stage provider on Adult Social Care Dynamic Purchasing System for residents of Slough (ASC DPS)

There were no quality concerns cited by Buckinghamshire and the provider has a large block contract with them.

This contract will be awarded under Lot 21, the emergency lot

Contract Variations

In relation to contracts 19 – 24, as above. capacity was required at pace to support the transfer of work from all providers whose contracts terminated on 30th November 2024.

Timescales were much tighter than originally expected with only 28 days to accommodate a transfer of approx. 2000 hours of care per week.
Expressions of interest were sought from existing providers operating in our market who were not embargoed following completion of Social Work reviews to identify those individuals who wished to transfer to an alternative provider at the end of the contracts.

On receipt of express interest for any or all of the specified lots, we undertook a risk assessment of a provider’s recent supply history and provided anonymised staff TUP(E) information and more details of the care service requirements.

Responses were affected by the fact that exiting providers retained their staffing rather than enacting TUP(E) transfer, which meant that most of the existing providers operating in our local market were unable to accommodate the transfer as no staff were transferring with customers
As it became apparent that staffing would be an issue only six providers , contracts 19 – 24 were able to accept additional work and mobilise staff by 30 November 2024.

There have been a complex combination of factors pausing some significant challenge to service delivery. continuity of care and the statutory duty of the council to safeguard the wellbeing and welfare of the customers.

We are in the midst of the winter surge, and there is a pressing need to urgently put in place appropriate provision..

The pressing circumstances:
• shortage of workers in the local market.
• very few staff transferred over from outgoing providers under TUPE
• high number of providers embargoed
• delays in on boarding new providers
• capacity in the local market to accommodate the transfer of work from exiting providers
• winter and consequent additional surge in demand to support hospital discharge

Prior to taking the decision to enter into a new term of contract through direct award (Contract 18) the option to run a mini competition through the ASC DPS was considered to increase the number of suppliers.
This was not possible given that the outgoing provider contracts were due to expire on 30th November 2024 and there was insufficient time to carry out a full procurement exercise.