Issue details

To re-tender the Communication Service for Deaf and Deafened People to commence from 1 April 2020. The current contract ends 31 March 2020.
• This is a statutory Service
• Doncaster Adults service along with DCCG and DBTH have contracted a BSL service for a number of years to meet the communication needs of Deaf, Deafened or Deafblind residents
• This service is to provide Communication Support services that effectively meet the needs of residents, regardless of ethnicity, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation religion or belief.
• The new contract will be jointly commissioned (Doncaster Council, Doncaster Clinical Commissioning Group and Doncaster, Bassetlaw Foundation Teaching Hospital) and provides the opportunity to refresh the current Service Specification and to ensure that it fits with the current Adults Transformation Strategy and makes use of new technology.
• The current contract is due to expire 31st March 2020 is held by BID services.
• Quarterly contract review meetings take place with BID and the service is working well and is demonstrating added value (providing an in house interpreter and offering quality
improvement meetings with the deaf community)
• However in 2018 BID were only achieving 75% against performance target of 98% to fulfil assignments, primarily because the contract paid below the market rate exacerbated by a shortage of fully qualified Communication Support Interpreters.
• It was agreed (ODR ref: AHWB 0.68.2018) to increase the rate paid to freelancers from 1 November 2018. The in house interpreter remained at the original rate. This has improved the fulfilment rate, which is currently 94%.