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Surrey children's community health services procurement

Children’s community health services in Surrey comprise a wide range of community-based services that support physical and emotional health and wellbeing amongst children and young people from birth up to 19 years of age and their families and carers.

Service update

On 1 April 2025, the management of children’s community health services in Surrey and North East Hampshire and Farnham will transfer from the current provider, Children and Family Health Surrey (CFHS), to HCRG Care Group one of the UK’s largest providers of child and family health services.

The name of the service will change to Surrey Child and Family Health. This website has more information about the new service.

Services in scope for transfer

The new provider will take on the management of universal services such as health visiting, school nursing, and school-age immunisations, and specialist services including children’s therapies, specialist nursing and developmental paediatrics. 

What’s happening now

All organisations involved in commissioning and providing these services are committed to making sure that children and families in the area continue to receive the best care.

HCRG Care Group and Children and Family Health Surrey are currently working together with the commissioners to ensure that the services transfer smoothly from one organisation to the other.

These changes to the service were announced in October 2024 following a robust procurement process by the four commissioning authorities for these services:

  • NHS Surrey Heartlands Integrated Care Board (ICB)
  • NHS Frimley Integrated Care Board (ICB)
  • Surrey County Council
  • NHS England (South East)

Continuity of care

Families can be assured of continuity of their child’s care in the months ahead. Most healthcare professionals currently employed by the organisations that form the Children and Family Health Surrey partnership, will transfer to HCRG Care Group on 1 April 2025.

Children’s Community Health Services Procurement

These services are currently provided by Children and Family Health Surrey under an alliance agreement between Central Surrey Health, First Community Health and Care, and Surrey and Borders Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. This contracting arrangement began in 2017.

Feedback from families and staff

Engagement and conversations with children, young people, families, carers, and professionals has formed the foundation for a new and innovative approach to delivering Children’s Community Health Services.

Families, children, and young people have told us that they want to be able to access support easily and need help navigating complex pathways and services; they want to understand what is available to them and how long they may have to wait. 

Engagement report

Engagement with the community, children, young people and their families is critical to the co-development of services.

Surrey Heartlands used several approaches to ensure the voice of our community is heard one of which was to commission a company called Spark the Difference. They were asked to:

  1. Understand the current experience of children, young people, their families and carers.
  2. Understand what works well, what isn’t working and where improvements are needed for both service users and professionals.
  3. Ensure insight from lived experience shapes community health support for children, young people, their families and carers going forward.  

Between June and November 2022, Spark the Difference engaged with 96 service users, 43 staff members, conducted 11 site visits, attended local community events and received support from 17 system partners and groups with over 300+ written contributions.

The feedback from this report has been instrumental in shaping our service model and specifications.

We hope you enjoy reading this valuable and informative work.

Children's Community Health Services Engagement Report [pdf] 7MB