Birmingham Children's Trust - Market Sounding: Out of hours telephone messaging service

The Birmingham Children's Trust (BCT) Emergency Duty Team (EDT) service provides out of hours emergency cover for children's social care Monday to Friday between 17:15 and 08:45 (16:15 on Friday), and provides weekend cover for Saturday, Sunday and Bank Holidays. The service is made up of Professional Support staff who deal with call handling, and a Social Work team.

Monday to Friday the EDT professional support staff work until 00.45, Monday to Thursday and 23.45 Friday and on weekends and bank holidays from 8.45 - 00.45. When the professional support staff, are off duty Social Workers will pick up calls where possible, if at any times during the PSS working hours, or when Social Workers are not available to pick up calls a call handling service is required to manage calls coming into the service.

The purpose of this market sounding exercise is to seek feedback from Providers on the interest in delivering the out of hours service for the Trust. This survey outlines the general requirements to enable potential providers to explain their capabilities and experience in delivering this service. Should this exercise lead to a procurement, the potential bidders will not be prejudiced by any response or failure to respond to this market consultation or any further consultations on this matter.