HCRG Care Group to provide vital community-based support to children and young people with autism and learning disabilities
HCRG Care Group is delighted to be awarded a contract to provide vital community-based, non-clinical support to children and young people with autism and learning disabilities.
The Keyworker Service, commissioned by Southend, Essex and Thurrock Transforming Care Partnership (on behalf of Mid and South Essex, Hertfordshire and West Essex, and Suffolk and North East Essex Integrated Care Boards), is designed to help the most vulnerable young people avoid unnecessary tier 4 hospital admissions for mental health.
The new contract has been signed and the mobilisation period has begun in advance of the service starting on the anticipated date of 1 February 2023. The service is commissioned until 31 March 2025 and represents a total value of £2.42m.
The new service is one of several pilots being run across the country for children and young people with complex needs who are at the highest risk of being admitted to hospital. It is designed to help them stay at home – or return home as soon as possible following a hospital stay – where they are surrounded by their trusted support network and more likely to thrive.
Richard Comerford, Chief Commercial Officer at HCRG Care Group, commented:
“Our purpose at HCRG Care Group is to change lives through transforming health and care. We do this by continually working to design and deliver innovative new services that will improve outcomes for the children and young people we support. This new contract is a natural extension of our highly successful Essex Child and Family Wellbeing Service and will enable us to provide vital support to vulnerable children and young people, keeping them out of hospital and allowing them to continue living full and satisfying lives”.
The HCRG Care Group team behind the new service has been running the Essex Child and Family Wellbeing Service, in partnership with Barnardo’s since 2017. Rated ‘good’ by the Care Quality Commission, the service ensures that families have free and easy access to local health services in the community.
Becca King, Integrated Learning Disabilities Health Commissioner working on behalf of the ICBs and Local Authorities of Southend, Essex and Thurrock, said: “It is the ambition of the Health Equalities Commissioning Team to help drive system change to improve outcomes and promote health equality for children and young people with autism and learning disabilities. At the forefront of this change will be the delivery of the Keyworker Service which will help to provide children, young people and their families to navigate the system with confidence, promoting timely access to the right services for support, and ultimately keep children and young people at home safely and in their communities where they can thrive.
“We are pleased to be working alongside HCRG Care Group in the delivery of this contract after a thorough and robust procurement process, within which they provided good levels of assurance about understanding the importance of delivering such a service to improve the health and wellbeing outcomes for this population.”
