The Council has a statutory duty to ensure that there is sufficient and fit for purpose provision of care services to Herefordshire residents who are eligible under the Care Act 2014 and that a sustainable market is maintained providing choice and quality. Care home services contribute to the offer of services to meet assessed need. Plus under the Care and Support and Aftercare (Choice of Accommodation) Regulations 2014 (‘choice of accommodation regulations’). Local Authorities have a duty to offer residents (whose care they are funding) choice over where they receive their care provided the home accepts the funding terms and conditions, including how much the Council is willing to pay.
A DPS is designed to give buyers access to pre-qualified Suppliers and ensures that the end-to-end process is competitive, fair and transparent. Suppliers need to meet the online entry criteria to get onto the DPS. New suppliers can join at any time during the lifetime of the DPS.
These call-off contracts represent approximately £30m of annual spend by the Council on adult care home provision, but no guarantee is given as to the actual value of the Contract for each Provider/Supplier due to fluctuations in demand for the Service and any National Living Wage and inflationary increases that may be applied during the lifetime of the contract. The DPS does require a 12 month Termination Notice period to be given to suppliers to terminate.

As lead commissioner the council undertook a procurement exercise in 2016 with a view to establishing an accredited list for the council and CCG of Providers in Herefordshire.
Colleagues in our Procurement Team have reviewed the Proactis tender opportunity and the term of the DPS as advertised was 5th Sept 2016 – 5th Sept 2020 (approx. £19m) (please note this is an annual fig which is higher now). This was advertised as a DPS and was entitled - ‘Residential and Nursing Accredited List’. The DPS was extended in 2020 by 1 year until 5th Sept 2021.

Regulation 34 of the PCRs 2015 sets out the rules on Dynamic Purchasing Systems, including specific rules regarding the ability to change the period of validity of the DPS that provides flexibility if the authority’s circumstances change or developments in technology and markets mean that the DPS, as originally set-up, outlives its usefulness. It is useful to note there is no specific maximum duration of a DPS.

The council will submit for publication on the UK e- notification service a notice of the kind used initially for the call for competition for the dynamic purchasing system setting out the extension provisions.

Over 300 care homes have successfully applied to join the DPS from the 1st September 2016 to date.
The Council currently have 798 individual placements with 132 contracted care homes under the DPS. This number of individual placements has remained fairly constant over the last five years, with an average churn of 30 new placements per month.

This is a dynamic situation with the introduction of the Integrated Care System and we are actively scoping cross border opportunities with both the HWCCG and Worcestershire County Council (WCC) to establish and secure their potential support/commitment for a joint approach to secure adult care home provision across the two Counties. The extension period will allow time to review and facilitate the above scoping exercise.

The council needs to the ability to put in emergency/urgent block contracts as issues arise which need to be responded to promptly therefore the additional ability to do temporary short term block contracts through a mini tender will allow flexibility to enable the council to do this.