The private equity-owned company, HCRG Care, has been awarded a contract to lead all adult and community services across Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire (BSW) Integrated Care System, which could be worth up to £1.3bn over nine years.
The ICS’s community services are currently split across separate contracts, including the NHS providers, Great Western Hospitals Foundation Trust, Oxford Health FT, and a partnership of three NHS trusts serving Wiltshire via a joint venture. HCRG Care Group also provides some community services under contract with the ICB.
BSW ICB is billing the award as a “new model of community-based care” with HCRG Care appointed “to lead an innovative new community-based care partnership with the NHS, local authorities and charities.”
From April 2025, current NHS employees in these services will be directly employed by HCRG Care and will deliver the core services directly. According to HSJ, as lead provider, HCRG could sub-contract the delivery of services to partner organisations, but arrangements for this have not been decided.
Full story in The Lowdown, 20 October 2024
