Guide · 8 min read
How to bid for NHS contracts
The NHS is not one buyer. Trusts, integrated care boards, primary care organisations, national bodies and shared procurement hubs all purchase separately, and the rules that apply depend on what is being bought. The most important distinction to grasp early is between healthcare services for patients, which follow the Provider Selection Regime, and everything else, which follows mainstream public procurement law.
Two rulebooks, depending on what you sell
Since January 2024, the commissioning of most healthcare services in England has been governed by the Provider Selection Regime. It replaced the previous competitive-tendering default with a set of decision-making processes designed around continuity of patient care, and it applies to bodies such as integrated care boards, NHS England, trusts and local authorities when they arrange in-scope health services.
Everything else the NHS buys, including cleaning, catering, estates and facilities work, medical equipment and consumables, IT systems, temporary staffing and professional services, sits under the Procurement Act 2023 regime and is tendered much like any other public contract, appearing on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder.
Work out which regime your service falls under before you plan your approach, because the routes to market are genuinely different. Guessing wrong means watching for the wrong notices.
What the Provider Selection Regime means in practice
The regime gives commissioners a choice of processes: direct award where there is only one credible provider or where the existing provider is doing well and the service is not changing materially, the most suitable provider process where a commissioner can identify the best provider without a full competition, and a competitive process where they want to test the market.
Decisions are assessed against defined criteria covering quality and innovation, value, integration and collaboration, access and inequalities, service sustainability and social value. Commissioners must publish their intended decisions and reasons, which creates a genuine transparency trail you can learn from even when you did not bid.
The strategic implication is that relationships and demonstrated performance now matter more than tender-writing speed. If a service you want is currently held by someone else and being delivered adequately, it may be directly awarded again. Being visible to commissioners, contributing to engagement exercises, and being on the record as a credible alternative provider is how you get into contention before any process starts.
Frameworks and buying routes for non-clinical suppliers
A large share of non-clinical NHS spend runs through frameworks rather than one-off tenders. NHS Supply Chain covers consumables and equipment categories; NHS Shared Business Services, Crown Commercial Service, and organisations such as NHS London Procurement Partnership and the various regional collaboratives run frameworks for services, temporary staffing, IT and professional support.
Get on the relevant framework and then compete for call-offs from it. Individual trusts also tender directly, particularly for estates, minor works and locally specific services, and those notices appear on the mainstream portals. Shared procurement hubs often run a single tender covering several trusts, which raises both the contract value and the resourcing bar.
Read the call-off mechanism before bidding. Some frameworks distribute work by further competition, others by direct selection against ranked pricing, and a framework place with no realistic route to call-offs consumes bid effort without producing revenue.
Information governance and the evidence NHS buyers expect
If your service touches patient data in any way, whether clinical systems, transcription, patient transport scheduling or digital tools, expect to complete the Data Security and Protection Toolkit and to evidence its standards. Cyber Essentials or Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO 27001 are commonly requested alongside it, as are a data protection impact assessment and clear sub-processor arrangements.
For staffing and clinical services, expect scrutiny of professional registration, DBS checks at the right level, mandatory training records, clinical governance and incident reporting arrangements, indemnity cover and safeguarding policies. For estates and facilities work, expect the same health and safety, accreditation and competency evidence as any large-estate client would seek, plus infection prevention and control awareness.
NHS bids also weight net zero and social value. NHS England requires suppliers to meet carbon reporting expectations that scale with contract value, so having a published carbon reduction plan is increasingly a practical prerequisite rather than a nice-to-have.
A realistic approach for a smaller supplier
Start with a small number of trusts or an integrated care system you can genuinely serve, and learn how they buy. Read their board papers and published decisions, sign up to their e-tendering portal, respond to market engagement notices and pre-market questionnaires, and get your governance evidence in order before an opportunity appears.
Then monitor notices systematically. 123 Tenders aggregates NHS notices alongside the rest of UK public procurement, with sector pages for healthcare, nursing and social care, and each notice can be run through a Match Score against your profile and a Tender X-Ray before you commit. Always verify the requirement against the buyer's own published notice and documents.
Frequently asked questions
- Does the NHS still tender clinical services competitively?
- Sometimes. The Provider Selection Regime allows a competitive process, but it also permits direct award and a most suitable provider process. Which route is used depends on the service and the commissioner's assessment.
- Do I need the Data Security and Protection Toolkit?
- If your service processes NHS patient data or connects to national systems, yes, and buyers will ask for your published status. If you deliver, say, grounds maintenance, it is generally not applicable.
- Are NHS frameworks open to new suppliers at any time?
- Most frameworks are closed once awarded and reopen only when they are re-procured, so track their expiry dates. Dynamic markets and some multi-supplier arrangements do accept applications throughout their life.
This guide is general information about UK public procurement, not legal or financial advice. Thresholds, rules and portal requirements change: always check the official notice, the buyer's own tender documents and current government guidance before you rely on anything here.