BHR Homeless Outreach Service.
The contract for the current BHR homeless outreach service delivered by PELC (and Healthy Living and Healthy Lives in Redbridge) will end on 30/09/2024. The ICB recently carried out a procurement exercise, and the contract has been awarded to a new provider. The new provider is One Health Lewisham. The contract is in the mobilisation phase and the service is due to commence on 01/10/2024.
As part of the mobilisation process, OHL will attend practice managers forum and PLE, to meet with yourselves.
Further information about OHL can be found below:
Introducing One Health Lewisham (OHL)
One Health Lewisham (OHL), originally founded in 2016 as a GP Federation, has grown to become an integrated community provider committed to enhancing the quality, safety and accessibility of primary care across South-East and North-East London.
Our dynamic team deliver a comprehensive range of healthcare services, working closely with Practices, PCNs and the residents we serve to address the evolving healthcare needs of our community.
Our mission is rooted in equitably improving health outcomes, ensuring seamless access to care and supporting the integration of services across the healthcare system.
OHL deliver a broad portfolio of community-based and acute services, including GP-led Urgent Care, Home Visiting, Frailty, Dermatology, Long COVID rehabilitation, Tech-Enabled Virtual Wards, Care Homes, High Intensity Users (HIU), Health Checks and Special Allocation Service (formerly known as the Violent and Disruptive Patient Service) for North-East and South-East London.
We were delighted to have recently been re-awarded a further five-year contract to continue to deliver the HIU and Special Allocation Services for both SEL and NEL, in recognition of our strength in managing these challenging cohorts of patients with multifaceted complex care needs. We are proud that our Special Allocation Service was also recognised as Practice of the Year at this year’s NHS South-East London Primary Care Awards.
Through leveraging our close partnerships with local system partners and our skills in integrating digital innovation into primary care, we aim to ensure that our patients receive timely, holistic care that reduces the burden on secondary care and keeps patients healthy at home.
Since our founding, OHL has remained dedicated to providing scalable solutions that empower GP practices and PCNs, while responding flexibly to the needs of the population. Our strategic goals focus on expanding community-based services, fostering collaboration across London and ensuring the long-term sustainability of our services.
We are delighted to have been chosen to work with our commissioning colleagues at NELICB to deliver the Homeless Outreach Service for Barking & Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge from 1st October 2024.
We will aim to work with each of you and our commissioners to create a multidisciplinary, ANP-led service providing open-access primary care to the homeless and rough sleeping population across the three boroughs. The service will include holistic and specialised support, addressing the complex health and social needs of this cohort, including mental health, housing support and substance misuse. The outreach service will “bring healthcare to the rough sleepers” and our clinical teams will see patients in hostels, outreach hubs and sleep sites.
We are excited to be incorporating several bold, out-of-the-box ideas to deliver homeless healthcare in a way that truly meets the unique needs of homeless individuals and rough sleepers. We plan to use a mobile health unit with internet and phone charging facilities for homeless and rough sleepers, deploy e-bikes for outreach to sleep sites and will integrate new tech such as What3Words geocodes to record locations of rough sleepers across the boroughs. Our clinical lead, Ruth Reilly, joins OHL from Arch Healthcare, Brighton’s CQC “Outstanding”-rated Homeless Outreach Service and she will be introducing herself to each of our local partners over the coming weeks.
We very much look forward to working in partnership with each of you in shaping and developing the BHR Homeless Outreach Service to better benefit our service users and enhance the service we are able to provide BHR’s homeless and rough sleeping population.
Please reach out to the OHL team via ohl.admin@nhs.net if you have any further questions or would like to arrange a meeting.