The new contract for community health care services for Wiltshire’s 110,000 nought-to-eighteen year-olds comes into operation this week. Virgin Care won the contract worth £12.8million a year for five years.
This service includes health visitors and school nursing, speech and language therapy, the safeguarding children service, the looked after children’s health service – and several other specialties in children’s health care. The service was previously provided by five organisations – including the three acute hospitals that serve the county.
Staff are being moved to Virgin Care under the appropriate transfer regulations which ensure their pay, pensions and conditions of work are maintained.
The contract is paid for by Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), but it was awarded jointly by the CCG, NHS England and Wiltshire Council.
The Council’s leader, Baroness Scott, has said: “During the procurement process, commissioners checked the financial modelling put forward by Virgin care for the duration of the contract. This does not include any profit margin.”
Leaders of the three awarding organisations explained the decision to concentrate the services under one contract: “Bringing together community child health services from the across the county under one provider was a key priority for us. We want to ensure that every child in Wiltshire has the same access to services regardless of where they live in the county.”