Evaluation of Co-located Advice Hubs in Healthcare Settings

The requirement is the commissioning of a feasibility study and evaluation of co-located advice services in healthcare settings.

There is a clear and well-established link between poor health and legal problems which is bi-directional meaning poor health can cause legal problems and legal problems can contribute to poor health. When left unresolved, these issues can escalate requiring costlier solutions for the MoJ and place additional strain on other government departments and the NHS.

In recognition of these links, individuals from the health and justice sectors have come together to establish health-justice partnerships HJPs as a means of improving population health and access to justice. However, while there are a growing number of HJPs across the UK, existing evidence around this model suffers from significant limitations, particularly around the longer-term and financial impacts of these types of services. Additionally, many of these partnerships are delivered by third sector organisations with limited resource to carry out the robust evaluation required to generate the necessary evidence.

MoJ proposes to address the existing evidence gaps through this requirement. To do this the supplier will be designing and carrying out quantitative and qualitative research to evaluate to what extent co-located advice hubs in healthcare settings result in legal problems being resolved earlier and better health and socio-economic outcomes, quantifying the financial benefits of these improved outcomes.