Issue - decisions

To undertake an EU compliant procurement exercise of the Communication Service for Deaf and Deafened People for a new contract to commence on 1 April 2020 for 36 months with the option to extend for 2 x 12 months. The current contract ends 31 March 2020.

Current Council spend is around £21k per annum. Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and Doncaster and Bassetlaw Hospital Trust (DBHT) are charged for any health assignments in addition to this.

The Council wishes to commission a service on an outcome focused approach that will provide Doncaster residents who are deaf, deafened or deafblind with a:
• comprehensive and independent communication service available at the times required by Service Users and other parties involved in the assignment,
• fully accessible service, easy for stakeholders to contact and compliant with all equal opportunities legislation,
• qualified and competent communication support,
• responsive to the communication needs of the Service User and other parties involved in
the assignment,
• person centred, flexible service that can meet complex needs of Service Users’ e.g. dual sensory loss, mental health needs.
Service Review 2019.

A full service review has been undertaken to inform future commissioning. It was identified that there had been some issues around cancellations/non-attendance of interpreters that had been booked for appointments. This appears to have improved since Doncaster Council and partners decided to increase the guaranteed freelance fee from two to three hours.

However, the fees are still below the NUBSLI (National Union of British Sign Language Interpreters) guidelines due to financial constraints of the contract that has now been in place for over 8 years.

BID continues to strive to meet the communication needs of the deaf community in Doncaster by providing a robust accessible booking process and providing high quality communication support and professionals. A team of dedicated co-ordinators manage the booking process and work closely with service users and professionals.
All BID’s interpreters are registered with NRCPD (National Registers of Communication Professionals Working with Deaf and Deafblind People (UK)) with a minimum Level 6 qualification.

In June 2019 BID introduced a new web-based portal booking system.

It is clear from the previous feedback from service users there have been some issues around cancellations/non-attendance of interpreters that had been booked for appointments.
The issues appear to be with the freelance interpreters rather that the contracted staff members, we have addressed this by increasing the appointment times from 2 to 3 hour minimum slots in-line with other organisations using the freelance interpreters.