How New Care Providers Can Win Their First NHS/Council Tender (No Track Record Required)
Winning NHS and council care tenders as a new provider without company references is challenging but achievable.
Procurement teams increasingly value innovation, social value, and specialist skills from SMEs over simple longevity. By leveraging staff expertise, targeting the right opportunities, and excelling in social value scoring, new care providers can successfully compete against established organizations.
The belief that you need years of contract references to win public sector care work stops many capable providers from even trying. While references help, they’re just one piece of the evaluation puzzle. Smart new providers win contracts by understanding what commissioners truly value and building credibility through alternative routes.
What Can You Use Instead of Company References?
Leverage Individual Staff Expertise
When you lack a company track record, your experience is the combined history of your team. This collective expertise often exceeds what many established providers can demonstrate.
CVs of Key Personnel serve as powerful evidence of capability. Detail the professional backgrounds, qualifications, and previous roles of your registered manager and senior staff. If your manager ran a 50 bed care home for an established provider, that experience directly proves they can manage complex care operations. Include specific achievements like CQC rating improvements, successful inspections, or staff retention rates from their previous positions.
Staff Case Studies demonstrate technical competence in ways generic references cannot. Detail specific complex cases your staff successfully managed in prior roles, always with permission and properly anonymized. For example, describe how your clinical lead managed a service user with challenging behaviors in their previous role, the interventions used, and the outcomes achieved. These concrete examples show evaluators exactly what your team can deliver.
Present your team’s collective experience prominently in quality responses.
A statement like “Our five senior staff bring 73 combined years of care experience, including 12 years managing NHS contracts” immediately establishes credibility. Make it clear that while your organization is new, your people are proven professionals.
Which Tenders Should You Target First?
Avoid prime provider contracts that require high turnover thresholds and extensive experience requirements. Instead, focus on strategic entry points designed for smaller or newer providers.
Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) are open entry lists that frequently reopen for new providers. Unlike traditional frameworks with fixed timelines, DPS allows rolling applications. Once accepted, you’re eligible to bid for call off contracts as they arise. Many councils operate DPS for domiciliary care, supported living, and specialist services. The entry requirements typically focus on compliance and capability rather than lengthy track records.
Framework Agreements that award spots to multiple providers create better opportunities than single supplier contracts. These multi provider frameworks recognize that diverse provider bases strengthen service delivery. Look for frameworks explicitly welcoming SMEs or new entrants, often indicated by reserved lots or supportive language in tender notices.
Spot Provider Frameworks are specifically designed for smaller or newer agencies to take on individual care packages. These frameworks allow commissioners to match service users with appropriate providers for bespoke packages. Lower volume requirements and emphasis on personalized care suit new providers perfectly. Your size becomes an advantage rather than a limitation.
Subcontracting builds company references for future bids. Partner with an established provider to deliver a portion of their contract. This gives you experience delivering publicly funded care while developing the track record you need. Ensure subcontracts clearly document your performance, outcomes, and any innovations you introduce. After 12 to 18 months of successful subcontracting, you’ll have credible references for your own bids.
How Do You Score Points on Social Value?
Social value is a mandatory scoring section in public tenders, often worth at least 10% of total scores. This is where new companies can outscore established incumbents who submit generic, recycled responses.
Local Impact commitments resonate strongly with commissioners trying to strengthen local economies. Commit to hiring long term unemployed locals, offering guaranteed interview schemes for care leavers, or creating clear apprenticeship pathways. Be specific: “We’ll recruit 75% of staff from the borough and create four apprenticeships in year one” scores higher than vague employment promises. Partner with local job centers to make these commitments credible and deliverable.
Sustainability initiatives demonstrate forward thinking that many established providers overlook. Provide a clear plan for reaching net zero, such as transitioning to electric vehicles for community visits, eliminating single use plastics in care delivery, or sourcing from local sustainable suppliers. Even modest commitments like reducing mileage through efficient scheduling or minimizing paper usage through digital care planning show genuine effort. Quantify carbon savings where possible to strengthen your response.
Community Engagement creates additional value beyond direct service delivery. Partner with local charities or volunteer groups to support patient wellbeing through activities, befriending services, or social inclusion programs. Commit to community projects like fundraising for local causes, supporting food banks, or organizing health awareness events. These partnerships cost little but demonstrate you’re invested in the community, not just extracting profit from contracts.
What Compliance Requirements Must You Meet?
New providers are often disqualified on pass or fail criteria before their quality responses are even assessed. Getting these fundamentals right is non-negotiable.
CQC Registration must be active and appropriate for services you’re bidding to deliver. If not yet inspected, provide detailed written responses about your quality assurance systems, governance structures, and how you meet fundamental standards. Reference your statement of purpose and demonstrate you understand regulatory expectations. Any conditions on your registration must be explained and ideally resolved before bidding.
Financial Health requirements typically ask for two to three years of audited accounts. As a new provider, be prepared to provide alternative evidence of financial stability. A parent company guarantee works if you’re part of a larger group. Otherwise, obtain a letter from your bank or accountant confirming working capital, cash reserves, and financial viability. Include business plans showing projected income and expenditure for the contract period. Some tenders accept proof of available credit facilities or insurance backed financial guarantees.
Robust Policies on safeguarding, infection control, and data protection (GDPR) must be comprehensive and ready to submit. Evaluators can immediately spot template policies downloaded from the internet. Your policies should reference your actual organizational structure, name specific staff roles, and include genuine procedures you’ll follow. Consider having policies reviewed by relevant experts (safeguarding leads, data protection specialists) to ensure they’re truly robust. Quality policies signal that you take compliance seriously and understand the responsibilities you’re accepting.
Where Do You Find Suitable Opportunities?
Register on official platforms to receive alerts for opportunities matching your capabilities and experience level.
Contracts Finder lists public sector contracts in England worth over £12,000. Set up email alerts for care related opportunities in your target regions. Lower value contracts often have simpler requirements and less competition, making them ideal starting points. Regular monitoring helps you understand local commissioning patterns and timing.
Find a Tender (FTS) covers higher value contracts usually over £139,000. While these seem daunting, many include smaller lots or framework places accessible to new providers. The detailed tender documentation helps you learn what commissioners expect even if you’re not ready to bid yet. Studying successful and unsuccessful bid examples improves your understanding of winning approaches.
Atamis is the primary e-tendering portal for NHS opportunities. Create a supplier account and set alerts for relevant categories. NHS contracts increasingly include social enterprise and SME friendly lots. The portal also lists pre qualification questionnaires (PQQs) for frameworks, giving you advance notice of upcoming opportunities and time to prepare responses.
Beyond formal portals, attend local provider forums and market engagement events. Commissioners often share pipeline information and upcoming procurements informally. These events also let you network with potential consortium partners or established providers who might offer subcontracting opportunities.
How Should You Write Winning Quality Responses?
Your method statements must work harder without company references backing them up. Focus on concrete detail that proves capability.
Structure responses around the evaluation criteria, addressing every requirement explicitly. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to present staff case studies and examples. Where questions ask “how will you,” provide step by step processes showing exactly what you’ll do, who’s responsible, and how you’ll monitor effectiveness.
Include specific evidence like draft rotas showing safe staffing levels, training matrices proving competency management, or quality audit templates demonstrating systematic monitoring. The more tangible detail you provide, the more confidence you build. Generic statements about commitment to quality score poorly; detailed operational plans prove you’ve thought through every aspect of delivery.
Reference relevant best practice guidance from Skills for Care, NICE, or professional bodies. Showing awareness of sector standards and how you’ll implement them addresses concerns about inexperience. If you’re proposing innovative approaches, balance enthusiasm with evidence from pilot projects, research, or implementation elsewhere.
Don’t learn these lessons the expensive way. Get expert guidance on your first tender applications – we offer specialized support packages for new providers, see how we helped this client win.
What Partnerships Can Help You Win?
Collaboration with established organizations can overcome the reference gap while adding genuine value to your bid.
Consortium Arrangements combine your innovation with a partner’s track record. Choose partners whose values and operating approaches align with yours. The strongest consortia clearly define each member’s role and contribution. You might lead on direct care delivery and person centered innovation while your partner provides governance infrastructure and financial stability. Ensure profit sharing and decision making arrangements are fair and documented.
Clinical Supervision Partnerships with NHS professionals or established care providers add credibility. Arranging external clinical supervision or quality oversight from respected practitioners demonstrates you’re willing to invest in quality assurance beyond minimum requirements. These arrangements particularly strengthen bids for complex needs services where technical expertise is critical.
Training Partnerships with local colleges or specialist providers show commitment to workforce development. Formal agreements guaranteeing apprenticeship places, NVQ delivery, or specialist training access score points in both quality and social value sections. They also solve practical mobilization challenges by ensuring trained staff availability.
What Are Your Next Steps?
Start by honestly assessing your readiness to bid. Ensure CQC registration, insurance, and core policies are genuinely robust, not just minimally compliant.
Build relationships with local commissioners by attending engagement events and asking questions about future procurement plans.
Practice your tender writing on smaller, lower stakes opportunities.
The feedback from unsuccessful bids is invaluable for improving future responses.
Most importantly, recognize that every established provider was once a new entrant.
The organizations winning major NHS and council contracts today all started somewhere. With strategic targeting, robust evidence of capability, and commitment to genuine quality, your lack of company references is a temporary challenge, not a permanent barrier.
Ready to win your first care contract? We offer a ‘First Tender Success’ package specifically for new providers including: tender identification, PQQ/ITT completion, reference alternative development, and submission review. Book your consultation.