NHS Trusts, Integrated Care Boards and local government bodies release contract notices for health and social care services on a daily basis. This includes domiciliary care, assisted living, live-in support and mental health services among others — totalling £16.5 billion in England alone for the 2019–20 financial year, according to the National Audit Office.
In addition to the wealth of opportunities, public sector bodies are attractive clients for many health and social care bodies. Financial stability, longer-term contracts and adherence to the Prompt Payment Code mean there will be no issues with client cashflow or outstanding payments — supporting the long-term health of care providers.
Executive Compass have supported clients with over 2,000 health and social care SQs, PQQs and ITT submissions, maintaining an 85% success rate. Supported by our extensive experience, we share a few tips on how to write a high-quality bid and tender tailored to the opportunity, ensuring the highest possible chance of success.
Read the tender pack in full
It is crucial to read all documents, attachments and appendices contained within the tender pack to gain full understanding of the tendered service and any mandatory requirements. Providers are likely to deliver care and support to service users with vulnerabilities and who face increased risks — it is understandable authorities often have high expectations around the quality of service to be provided.
Further to this, take time to properly scrutinise the documentation, making note of the following:
- Requirements for active registration with an industry-specific regulatory body such as the CQC, Care Inspectorate or even Ofsted if the tender service involves residential care for children.
- Service requirements and benchmark KPIs, ensuring you have sufficient resource to deliver upon the scope of works.
- Minimum financial turnover, insurance and liability coverage and time spent trading as a business.
- Supporting documents and attachments for a compliant submission, including mobilisation plans, example visit reports and checklists, or organisational charts/staff CVs.
The tender documents will also contain information on how the tender submission should be formatted. For example, if the contract authority is using a textbox-based portal, it will not be possible to use images, diagrams or flow charts within a response — underscoring the importance of clear, concise written content.
Use persuasive, evidence-based material in quality responses
Responses should always be tailored to the opportunity, complete with references to the contract specification and case studies or examples based on previous experience delivering similar care services. Simple, descriptive methods of how the service will be implemented may produce an adequate response, but evidence of previous success will allay any reservations from evaluators, leading to maximum marks. Common topics for quality responses and method statements include:
- Person-centred planning, assuring authorities that service users will be involved with all decision-making and planning, thereby tailoring individual care and meeting the unique needs and preferences of the individual.
- Outcomes-focused care and support for each service user, which sets specific, measurable outcomes and goals the individual has indicated they want to achieve.
- Empowerment and enablement at the centre of service provision, ensuring that individuals retain as much autonomy and independence as is safely possible.
- Safeguarding measures and practices to protect service users against physical, mental, emotional or financial harm.
Equally, it is also important to be precise and consistent, adopting the buyer’s terminology where possible. For example, using ‘resident’ to refer to service users when the contract specification for an extra care scheme uses ‘tenants’ could introduce doubts around understanding the service’s principles and requirements.
Although this approach is time-consuming, it is important to note that a bid will not be won on cost alone. In some instances, we have supported care clients with tenders which were evaluated on a 100% quality basis. Dedicating time to writing bespoke responses will increase your chances of receiving high marks on quality, alleviating the pressure to submit an at-cost or marginal pricing schedule.
Demonstrate your ability to deliver added value and innovation
Many bidders will follow the same approaches to common tender topics such as resourcing, managing performance and delivering person-centred care to service users. Consequently, evidencing how you propose to bring significant added value and innovation to the contract and provide value for money becomes even more crucial.
Within tendering, your unique approaches and innovative working practices can be referred to as ‘win themes,’ which could comprise:
- Additional skills, competencies and experience outside the contract scope possessed by the contract-specific team — for instance, Level 2 and 3 certificates and experience in dementia care.
- Community engagement and partnerships with local organisations to provide additional social activities or support groups to service users, allowing them to retain independence and pursue hobbies and interests.
- Assistive technologies, health monitoring devices or emergency response equipment which can be offered free of charge as part of the service, increasing the individualised support for each service user.
Where appropriate, these can be referenced and woven into relevant quality responses and method statements, reminding evaluators of your forward-thinking and innovative approaches to service delivery.
Ensure sufficient time for the quality assurance process
Bid management for health and social care contracts is very competitive. Once responses have been drafted, appendices have been completed and pricing has been set, it is also important to cast a fair but critical eye over your work to determine how the bid can be further enhanced and strengthened. As a minimum, this should include:
- A line-by-line review of all quality responses by a competent individual, outlining targeted amendments and improvements to enhance the tender’s overall persuasiveness.
- Verifying the PQQ or SQ has been completed accurately and in full, with sufficient answers to supplementary questions such as contract examples and GDPR compliance.
- Pricing schedules are correct for the size and scope of the contract, with no gaps or omissions which could risk automatic disqualification.
- All documents and appendices are uploaded in their correct location or the ‘additional information’ section in the online portal.
By following the above process, the full tender should be ready to submit no less than 24 hours prior to the submission deadline, minimising risk due to IT or connectivity issues.
