National Infrastructure Support for IPS Expansion

The requirement was to procure support across three key areas of activity: (1) Hands-on implementation support from a network of IPS experts; (2) A workforce development programme to support recruitment and training of new high quality IPS staff; (3) Developing, cascading and embedding tools for effective reporting, monitoring and evaluation.

Specific outputs under the proposed contract will include:

Activity Area 1 - Recruitment of 7 skilled IPS Expert Implementation Managers (EIMs) to correspond with the newly agreed NHS England/NHS Improvement regions; - Recruitment of programme lead to manage the whole project, and operational manager to lead and provide support to EIMS - Recruitment of analytical lead to ensure accurate reporting and evaluation of activity of EIMS and IPS teams; - Development of communities of practice / learning communities and the reach of these communities across IPS services;

Activity Area 2 - Accreditation and recognition of an IPS training curriculum, and a number of training organisations using the curriculum to structure IPS training, and use of this curriculum by IPS teams to train and develop staff; - Development and distribution of free-to-use training materials, and uptake of free-to-use training materials by IPS teams; - Development of learning collaborative plus associated marketing, recruitment resources, materials, and events;

Activity Area 3 - Development of a web-based benchmarking reporting tool to be used by IPS services to support more consistent reporting of outcomes; - Development of a prototype case management system which providers can use to either replace a) existing ill-adapted systems or b) excel/paper-based records; - Conduct a feasibility study around integration of this case management system with NHS clinical systems; - Formal feedback (e.g. surveys, focus groups) from programme users (providers, commissioners, employment advisers);