NHS England wishes to undertake a Market Engagement Consultation exercise with suitably qualified and experienced organisations, and interested stakeholders, in advance of a formal tendering process for Independent Investigations to a Framework opportunity.

NHS England is opening a consultation opportunity from Tuesday 5th December to Friday 25th January 2019 during which we would like to in the first instance receive expressions of interest and secondly to talk to the market to ascertain the capabilities and capacity you can bring to the requirement to deliver Independent Investigations for predominately mental health care related homicides and other serious healthcare incident events in England.

The current Framework is due to expire in October 2019.

NHS England are conducting this market assessment of providers prior to a formal tender to be issued in 2019.

This Standard Operating Model has been developed by NHS England's regional teams with contributions from a wide range of stakeholders including Patient Safety Leads, NHS England Regional Leads, Area Team Directors of Nursing, Families and Carer's.

The regional investigations team commission an independent investigation of mental health care related homicides when a homicide has been committed by a person who is, or has been, subject to a care programme approach, or is under the care of specialist mental health services, in the past 6 months prior to the event.

Investigations carried out under the new Framework will be for homicides committed by those in receipt of mental health care and other serious healthcare incident events.

These incidents often require complex, multi-agency investigations involving internal and external stakeholders across geographical and organisational boundaries.

Regions are London Midlands and East North South A new structure of 7 regions with combined NHS England and NHS Improvement is due to be implemented in April 2019 A suitable qualified and experienced independent investigator will ensure that mental health care related, and other, homicides are investigated in such a way that lessons can be learned effectively to prevent recurrence; Overview of high level requirements are: - independent investigators will provide insight into the wider commissioning system and configuration of services that may have contributed to the incident in question; - Facilitate further examination of the care and treatment of patients in the wider context and establish whether or not an incident could have been predicted, or prevented, and if any lessons can be learned for the future to reduce the chances of recurrence; - Provide additional objectivity required due to the significant impact of these events on the victim's family and carers, plus the wider public concern that can arise following such an event; - Ensure families (to include friends, next-of-kin and extended families) of both the deceased and the perpetrator are fully involved.

Families should be at the centre of the