In September 2021 the Council commissioned Care in the home services including a Carers home and community respite service across Staffordshire for Carers who have been assessed as having support needs Respite Care and support enables Carers to take a break from their caring role and evidence suggests that this can help to achieve positive health, wellbeing and quality of life outcomes for Carers. Fewer Carers experienced mental health problems if they had taken a break since beginning their caring role. The purpose of Care in the home and Carers home and community respite Services are to enable Service Users to remain in their own homes, living as independently as possible and to achieve and maintain their autonomy, independence, personal identity and assessed outcomes. This Procurement is a 'flexible Platform Agreement' which will be commissioned under the Light Touch Regime (implemented through Regulations 74-77 of the Public Contract Regulations 2015). As stated in the original contract this Platform Agreement will be re-opened from time to time. This re-opening tender opportunity is to allow prospective Providers the opportunity to apply to join the Platform Agreement. Please note that during the Platform Agreement period, should a Provider who has already been awarded to a specific Platform Lot and sub lots and has enough capacity to operate within an additional Contract Zone sub lot, there is no requirement for the Provider to resubmit at the next opening of the Platform Agreement. The Provider must notify the Authorised Officer and as long as there is no contractual reason why (i.e. where there may be performance issues) then this may be permissible under the Platform Agreement terms and conditions. However, should a Provider be awarded to Platform Lot A Standard Homecare and not Platform Lot B Non-Standard Homecare or Platform Lot C Respite & Sitting Service and wish to be considered for Platform Lot B or Platform Lot C they must wait until the next Platform Agreement reopening and submit a completed ITT for that relevant Platform Lot. This submission will be evaluated in line with the evaluation process and criteria detailed in the tender documents.