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It can seem daunting when writing a response to an ambulance tender. The public sector requires a lot of additional policies and requirements to be in place when tendering. This blog hopes to answer all your FAQ’s to do with ambulance tenders and the NHS Ambulance Service tendering procedure.
The UK Ambulance Service is comprised of 10 individual NHS Ambulance Trusts in England:
Then you have the following services covering the rest of the UK:
The London Ambulance Service alone spends approximately £78 million annually procuring a range of goods and services. They work with a range of public organisations such as:
The NHS may put ambulance tenders out to procure many goods and services. Their principal areas of spending include:
Information technology
Fleet and logistics
Medical
Professional services
Framework agreements and Dynamic Purchasing Systems (DPS) are common ways that the NHS uses to procure ambulance goods and services. Framework agreements are used to appoint multiple suppliers to provide various services and goods. They can run for several years at a time with the possibility of extension. Many frameworks and DPSs will enable you to choose a ‘Lot’. A Lot is used for specific goods, service or location. It enables you to work alongside other service providers on a contract. Businesses are typically able to apply for three Lots. This is as long as you’re able to prove you have the capabilities to fulfil the contract if successful.
An ambulance tender response will likely require you to have certain accreditations, qualifications and policies. These will vary depending on the goods or service being procured. Some examples that could be required are:
Public sector organisations have a responsibility to ensure all public money received is used as resourcefully as possible. Due to this, successful tenders achieve the best value for money and contracts are awarded to the MEAT. MEAT stands for the most economically advantageous tender.
A MEAT means that the buyer is looking at more than just the price. They will be looking at a range of factors which could include:
Coinciding with MEAT, sustainable development, also referred to as social value is important for any public sector contract. You must comply with all applicable environmental, social and labour law requirements. The NHS and public sector, in general, take this seriously. As of January 2021, there is a mandatory 10% weighting on social value within all public contacts. Bear in mind 10% is the minimum, some can have a weighting of up to 30%.
This should not be an afterthought when writing your ambulance tender response. You should be including policies that you can actually deliver on and maintain. Social value responses expect you to demonstrate the social, environmental and economic aspects. They want to know you’re committed to aiding things such as:
The NHS will be looking to see tender responses that encourage the NHS Long Term Plan and sustainability.
Once you’ve found the right ambulance tender for your business, we can help you write the response. Our sister company, Hudson Succeed, have 60 years of collective experience of bid writing experience and an 87% success rate. Our Bid Writers can help your business win its next ambulance tender. We offer four bid writing and support packages.
If you’re interested in a specific ambulance tender you’ve seen why not send it our way? Our Bid Writers will take care of the bid response for you and they’ll even submit it on your behalf. They’ll provide you with a full Tender Writing breakdown.
Our Tender Mentor service analyses your tender content, double-checking it for any errors before you submit.
The Tender Ready package is for those who have never tendered before. We offer a three-stage process that makes sure you have everything in place to tender successfully. This package includes a 12-month subscription to a Discover portal of your choice.
If you’ve written an ambulance tender response but aren’t seeing the results you want, Tender Improvement can help. Our Bid Writers will assess your supporting documents and previous tender submissions. They’ll give you some guidance and feedback on how to improve next time.
Our Healthcare Tenders portal is home to hundreds of live healthcare contract opportunities, frameworks and DPS’ from across the UK. These can be lucrative opportunities for your business. They are a fine way to secure a pipeline of work for your business.
Good question. A subscription to Healthcare Tenders allows you to view all opportunities from multiple UK portals in one, central, easy-to-navigate place. We don’t rely on often mislabelled CPV codes. Our Opportunity Trackers manually trawl through thousands of sites daily, uploading them via keyword. This means you’ll never miss an opportunity for your business again.
You’re able to filter the results by keyword, budget, location and more. This saves you even more time, allowing you to tailor the results to suit you. You’ll also receive a daily email bulletin straight to your inbox containing all the live tenders found that day.
Tender for the Provision of Frontline Ambulance
States of Jersey – International – Budget: Undisclosed
26-01-2021
Framework Agreement for the Supply of Non-Emergency Patient Ambulance Transport
Birmingham Women’s and Children’s NHS Foundation Trust – West Midlands
Budget: Undisclosed
25-04-2019
Non-Emergency Ambulance Transport Service
Procurement and Logistics Service – Northern Ireland- Budget: £19,620,000
09-01-2019
Specialised Critical Care Ambulance Transport Service for The East Midlands Region
NHS England and NHS Improvement (Specialised Commissioning) – East Midlands
Budget: £12,250,000
14-08-2020
Market Engagement Event For Specialised Critical Care Ambulance Transport Services Related Procurement
NHS Arden and Greater East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit – East Midlands – Budget: Undisclosed
12-02-2020
Medical Supplies & Consumables
Book a free live demo today.
We know how busy you are running your own business. That’s why we want to make life even easier for you with our new Discover Elite packages. This upgraded feature is particularly useful if your business runs across two sectors such as Healthcare and Technology, for example. It helps streamline the tendering process, even more, eliminating the frustrating, time-consuming pre-bid admin aspect of tendering.
The Ultimate Time-Saving Tool
The Ultimate Time-Saving Tool package does what it says on the tin. This package includes:
Become a Pre-Bid Master
Become a Pre-Bid Master package includes all the perks above, plus the following two perks:
Contact us for more information.