Tender for the provision of a dementia and functional illness support service

The London Borough of Merton and Sutton & Merton Primary Care Trust Partnership are inviting tenders from suitably qualified and experienced organisations who wish to provide integrated specialist services for older people with dementia and their carers where health and social care services operate seamlessly and in close partnership to meet the following. Key elements of the service (which must be carried out in accordance with all relevant statutory provision) will be:

• To promote the quality of life and independence of older people suffering from severe dementia andassociated challenging behaviour
• To enhance their ability to remain in their own homes
• To give advice and support to those caring for older people with dementia
• In partnership with South West London & St. Georges Mental Health NHS Trust provide separate therapeuticsessions for older people with serious functional (depression) illness

The council is introducing Individual Budgets over the next two years Prospective Tenderers will need to demonstrate theability to deliver high quality, innovative and effective support services together with an understanding of the potentialimpact of Individualised budgets on service delivery in their submissions.

The Contract will be awarded for an initial period of three years, with the option to extend (exercisable at the Council’s solediscretion), by two further increments of 1-year (making a potential Contract Period of up to 5-years). It is anticipated thatthe Contract will commence on 1 April 2009.

Organisations tendering should note that the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 mayapply.

The tender process will be managed by the London Borough of Merton‘s electronic tendering process, which may beaccessed at http://procurement.merton.gov.uk/

If you are not already registered then you will need to register your details. You should then e-mailsscontracts@merton.gov.uk informing us of your system generated registration number. The number is required to grantapproval to allow access to the tender documents. Once your registration has been approved you will need to follow theprompts and download the tender and all the other relevant documents.

The reference number for this tender is JBMH/01If you are already registered then go to ‘my tenders’ once you have logged in.

If you have any problems with the system please call the support line on 020 8545 4582.

For more information on procurement at LB Merton, please refer to our website athttp//www.merton.gov.uk/procurement

The closing date for tenders is: 23:59 pm on Tuesday 11th November 2008