Agenda item

To seek approval, from Cabinet, to extend the contract with the current provider, ABL Health Ltd, for two years.

The Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Public Health that was seeking to ensure that Oldham residents continued to have access to high quality health improvement services, including smoking cessation support and specialist weight management services. The purpose of this report is to seek approval to extend the contract with the current provider, ABL Health Ltd, for another two years.

The Cabinet were advised that Local authorities had responsibility for improving the health and wellbeing of their local population and to reduce health inequalities across, including the provision of public health advice on smoking and tobacco, obesity and physical activity. Oldham’s adult population is less physically active, smokes more, and carries more excess weight than the England average, which contributes to higher numbers of people with recorded diabetes, and deaths from smoking-related diseases, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The Council’s Public Health service, in collaboration with NHS ICB, commission a Health Improvement and Weight Management Service (HIWM Service). The service is currently delivered by ABL Health Ltd, under the service name of ‘Your Health Oldham’.  Your Health Oldham provide our specialist health improvement service through delivery of a range of interventions, including healthy weight, low level mental health and smoking cessation offers.

Options/alternatives considered:

Option 1- to extend the contract with ABL Health Ltd for another two years. This service has been performing well in the context of a high volume of referrals. Targeting those with greatest need, they achieve positive changes which contribute towards a healthy weight and smoking cessation. This contributes towards the prevention of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and other preventable health conditions thus improving quality and longevity of life for the residents of Oldham and diverting pressure from NHS resources and addressing health inequalities.

Option 2- to not extend the contract with ABL Health Ltd and cease the health improvement and weight management service. The service is reaching capacity for certain elements due to high demand, such as adult weight management. The service received 1475 referrals in the last quarter. Out of those, 882 referrals were for weight management. Therefore, ceasing this contract could result in high numbers of lost opportunities for people to receive support and change health behaviours.  It could also result in increased demand on the rest of the system, in particular the NHS, as people try to access support to stop smoking, lose weight and/or move more from elsewhere. If people are not able to seek effective, evidence-based support, there is a potential that there will be greater demand on health and social care to support people living with preventable smoking or obesity related health conditions. For the NHS and wider public services, the lifetime value of a person stopping smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, and being physically active, is considerable.   

Option 3- to commence a procurement process. As an integrated service with specialist weight management services, this service delivers good value for money compared with other areas and delivers comparable or better outcomes than other providers.  Not extending the contract and instead going out to the market is unlikely to provide better value for money.

The preferred Option was Option 1.

Resolved:

That the contract with ABL Health Ltd, be extended for a further two years.