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

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.

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.