The hospital system in the UK involves both private and public sector hospitals and procurement for hospitals form a major component of total annual procurement in the healthcare sector. A formal procurement process is almost always adopted by the NHS and hospital sector and our team of bid writers are experienced in helping our clients respond to RFP, ITT, EOIs and other opportunities.
Services procured by hospitals through hospital bids
Our team of expert bid writers have helped our clients to respond to bids for a broad range of hospital services required for hospitals across the UK. Examples of the types of hospital ITT, RFT, and Framework agreements we have responded to include:
Clinical services: We have helped clients bid for a range of clinical services hospital bids in the UK. These include both primary and secondary care services as well as carrying out diagnostic and treatment procedures. Doctors and organisations who provide cardiology, oncology and neurology services as well as emergency and trauma care often bid for hospital contracts to provide services.
Hospital support services: There are a broad range of non-medical services which our clients bid for through the hospital procurement process. These hospital bids, although not medical services, have to show an appreciation for working in a hospital environment. For example, facilities management and maintenance, catering, housekeeping and laundry, and admin and back-office support services are all areas of service which hospitals require. These contracts often have questions built within the RFP, ITT or Framework, talking about working in a hospital environment. For example, laundry services need to use hospital grade washing detergents and catering tenders require you to cater for a broad range of foods subject to each individual’s medical needs. In addition, when bidding for facilities maintenance tenders, the security of the hospital and safety of patients when maintenance works are being carried our is critical. Our expert writers know the important of addressing all these issues in order to win a bid for a hospital tender.
Technological services: Hospitals release contracts and bids for a range of IT services and solutions. Some of these are associated with ICT, data management, electronic health record management and even data storage. In addition, hospitals have to procure a broad range of services from energy to phone, internet and other services.
Tips from our expert bid writers on how to win more hospital bids
Ensure you comply with the mandatory criteria: The first step in the process to win a hospital bid is to ensure you comply with the mandatory criteria. You need to check the tender documents for any qualifications, licenses, accreditations and specific expertise or experience you require in order to submit the tender. These extend to environmental, safety and quality assurance accreditations. For example, there may be a requirement for ISO 9001, ISO 27001 and NVQs (and a certain level NVQ). It is important to check these in detail and not that sometimes a commitment to attain ISO is not sufficient, and needs to be supported by documented evidence.
Demonstrate your experience with detailed case studies: A standard question in most hospital bids is to provide details of your previous experience. More often than not, they will ask for examples of previous contracts you have delivered. When providing experience and case studies (or details of a contract you have delivered) it is important that you go into detail and cover all aspects of the contract. For example, talk about the volume of services provided, which key personnel were involved, how you managed the contract and what you delivered. Talk about any challenges that arose as part of the contract (including any that are specific to the hospital or medical environment) and how you overcame them. Outline if any key personnel involved will also be involved in this contract, and take the reader on a journey throughout the contract to show how you consistently delivered a quality service.
Be strategic with your pricing: You need to come up with a pricing strategy that helps you win the tender but also ensures you remain profitable. Generally speaking, the NHS and even private hospitals in the UK work off the MEAT principal. I.e. The winning tender is the bid with the most economically advantageous tender. This is the bid that provides the best and highest quality service at the lowest price. This doesn’t mean necessarily that the lowest price wins. Far from it. It means that the best price, combined with compliance with the mandatory criteria and the best response in terms of case studies and other experience over the course of the contract will win.
Put forward a comprehensive response to social value.
Ensure you submit a patient-centric bid. You need to ensure you submit a patient centric bid that is focused on solutions for the patients. Patient care and satisfaction is critical for hospital bids. This applies to services and products that the NHS procures that you would not normally associate with patient care.
The types of companies we help to write and winning hospital bids
We have helped a broad range of companies write and win hospital bids including:
- Large national and multinational healthcare corporations: These companies offer comprehensive end-to-end healthcare solutions and generally tender for a broad range of hospital services. They have robust systems and processes in place.
- Specialised health industry services providers: These clients are usually highly boutique and specialised businesses that service hospitals. More often then not, they only specialise in a single area of service in areas that are often quite niche. Sometimes our clients act as sub-contractors or enter into joint venture arrangements with larger healthcare providers who are bidding for a contract with a larger scope. Either way, there specialist services they provide range from IT, to equipment supply to software solutions for hospitals.
- Facilities management companies: Our team of bid writers who specialise in construction and facilities bids are generally responsible for writing these bids to hospitals. They know how to write cleaning, security and trades and maintenance bids for the hospital environment to demonstrate your knowledge and provide that you are a credible provider.
Testimonials from our clients
Jason and the team at Tsaks Consulting from Tsaks Consulting provided outstanding bid and tender writing support to your client for a major contract we were bidding for. We provide clinical services to hospitals including oncology and cardiology. They guided us on developing a quality and highly tailored response to all the questions that were hospital specific. They also come up with some great initiatives for social value. The Tsaks Consulting team are reliable and experienced bid writers that help with frameworks, ITTs and SQQs and have always provided a quality service to us.
Timothy P | Clinical Services Provider | London
Tsaks Consulting assisted us with a tender for hospital support services. Their team of writers are experienced and understand how to write submissions and bids to operate in the hospital environment. They know that regardless of the service you provide, be it maintenance or cleaning or whatever else, your proposal or SQQ response needs to be tailored to the hospital environment to win. The team at Tsaks Consulting are great at doing this and helped us write a number of bids and secure two key contracts.
John T | Maintenance Contractor | Manchester
How our team can help you win more hospital bids
Our team of writers can help you write your next bid to a NHS operated or private sector hospital in the UK. We have experience writing bids to hospitals across the UK including in NHS England (NHS Greater London, NHS North West, NHS North East, NHS Midlands, NHS East of England and the NHS South) as well as the NHS Scotland and NHS Wales. We help you to respond to all requests including ITTs, RFPs RFQs EOI, Framework Agreements and Restricted Tenders. Our team will help you:
- Write your bid from start to finish
- Project manage the bid writing process
- Decide whether or not the contract is worth bidding for
- Review your draft responses
- Provide feedback and review from a procurement perspective
- Create any supporting documentation you require