Provision of Call Handling For The Safeguarding Out Of Hours Service (SOOHS) For Hertfordshire County Council - AWARD

The Council has a requirement for the provision of a Call Handling Service For Hertfordshire Safeguarding Out Of Hours Service and is looking to procure a single Provider to deliver a confidential telephone out of hours first response screening service that will triage social care concerns to the most appropriate response by Children's Services or Adult Care Services within agreed response times.

The Provider must work in full cooperation and partnership with professionals in Children's Services and Adult Care Services in the best interests of vulnerable Children, Young People and Adults in Hertfordshire to deliver these Mandatory Requirements. This will include:

o An understanding of adult social care responsibilities, in particular safeguarding, mental health act assessments and recognising urgent social care referrals.

o An understanding of children's social care responsibilities

o An understanding of partners organisation roles so that referrals e.g. for health are signposted accurately

o An understanding of the information that should be collected at the point of referral including accurate recording of demographic details, contact details and information about the situation.

o Sensitive, professional and appropriate approach and language with referrers which will include professionals and members of the public in distress in order to collect the appropriate information.

o An ability to assess the urgency of a situation in order to include this information within the referral, escalate to manager and to alert the police if appropriate

o Accurate and reliable completion of the Council's ICT social care systems screens and other recording systems should these be unavailable

o Completion of referral and passing to SOOHS social work team within agreed time frames

o Compliance with agreed communication pathways including when systems are down

o Commitment to working collaboratively with the Council's Customer Service Centre to ensure seamless continuity of service

o The Provider will have an existing operational telephony call management / call handling system already in place prior to contract award.

The Service will be expected to operate within the following timeframes:

o From 20:00hours to 08:00hours Monday to Friday

o From Friday 20:00hours to 09:00hours Saturday

o From16:00hours Saturday until 08:00hours Monday

o 24 hour cover must be provided on Sundays and Bank Holidays