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New bill will make it easier for businesses to compete for public sector contracts

A new bill is currently being passed through Parliament which aims to make it easier for businesses to enter public sector supply chains.

The Procurement Bill lays out new rules and procedures for central government departments, their bodies and the wider public sector when selecting suppliers and awarding contracts with a value above certain thresholds.

In this blog, we look at what the Bill means, and the ways in which it could benefit Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) or Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises (VCSEs) looking to work with the Government and public sector in the future.

What is the Procurement Bill?

To put it simply, the Procurement Bill will make it easier to do business with central Government and the public sector by breaking down some of the barriers which currently exist, particularly in organisations such as the NHS.

Looking ahead, contracting authorities will be expected to consider SMEs and VCSEs to ensure a level playing field for all. Particular focus will be put on communicating with new suppliers of all sizes and making sure bidding times are realistic, especially for smaller businesses who may not have access to dedicated bidding teams. SMEs may also find themselves in a better position than their larger counterparts with smaller overheads allowing them to put forward more competitive prices.

Other benefits will include:

Greater flexibility of an authority’s ‘commercial pipelines’ and details of opportunities worth up to £2 million published up to 18 months in advance. This will give smaller contractors the chance to plan ahead and make the most of any relevant opportunities which may arise.

The introduction of clear rules about how authorities can communicate with businesses ahead of releasing a tender, giving potential new contractors the chance to network more freely with the authorities without having to worry about falling foul of the guidelines.

The introduction of a central platform where clear information about forthcoming tenders is published making the entire process much more transparent. Businesses will be able to set up email notifications to alert them about bids tailored to them.

A ‘tell us once’ approach – which allows details to be entered into a central platform or database once regardless of how many tenders a business may wish to bid for. There will also be a more flexible approach from the authorities to awarding contracts.

A detailed assessment summary which shows how an unsuccessful bid compares against the winning applicant.

Support with contract management to ensure the successful contractor is able to deliver. New rules will also be introduced removing the need for insurance relating to the performance of a contract.

An enhanced commercial tool called a Dynamic Market will be introduced to allow suppliers to join frameworks at any time rather than being locked out of the process, providing many new opportunities for smaller businesses.

How will it benefit me and my business?

Knowing how to navigate supply chain routes into organisations including the NHS has always been challenging so a Bill which helps to smooth that process will be a huge benefit to innovative small business and organisations looking for a way in.

Greater transparency on all signs can only be a good thing and will enable businesses to be better informed about the opportunities available and the best ways to get involved.

Proper feedback about why a particular bid failed is also important in giving businesses the tools and information they need to grow and succeed and come back with a successful bid next time.

The legislation will allow an authority to award contracts to ‘the most advantageous tender’ without having to be constrained by whichever offers ‘best value,’ a huge step forward for smaller, more local businesses.

And 30-day payment terms will apply throughout public sector supply chains, regardless of whether they are written into the contract. This will mean that businesses will receive payment from contracting authorities within 30 days.

At K Low Consulting, we welcome these changes and look forward to the Bill being implemented as soon as possible.

In the meantime, if you need help with commercial bid writing,bid management and strategy, get in touch with K Low Consulting today to see how we can assist you.

Contact info@klowconsulting.com or give us a call on 0330 133 1041.

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Virtual wards: An exciting opportunity for your business

Virtual wards are the future of healthcare

FOR many industries, the pandemic has had a lasting impact, fuelling many new opportunities for growth and change, particularly in healthcare where virtual wards are now commonly used.

It’s a process which largely began during the early days of lockdown, when businesses had to react quickly to find new ways of working remotely, embracing technology to ensure they stayed connected to their staff, clients – and even their patients.

Now, as we begin to emerge from the pandemic, some of these processes have remained in place, bringing with them enormous benefits – and exciting new opportunities – for healthcare providers and their patients.

As experts in the healthcare sector, K Low Consulting can help you learn more about these important developments, develop your strategy, help you create winning tender bids and grow your business.

What is a virtual ward?

Virtual wards allow patients to get the care they need at home, safely and conveniently, freeing up hospital beds for patients who really need them.

Supervised by hospital and community-based clinicians, virtual wards allow conditions such as coronavirus to be dynamically monitored while the patient stays in the comfort of their own home. For example, coronavirus patients can be discharged safely to a virtual ward with an oximeter – a small, lightweight device which measures the amount of oxygen in their blood. Readings are taken regularly and fed into the patients health tracking system. The system is configured to identify outlier readings, flagging these to both the patient and the clinical team for closer monitoring and escalation where required (either via video call or face-to-face visit).

The approach is all part of the NHS@Home programme which is building on the lessons learned from the pandemic, to enable patients to access personalised healthcare at home, rather than having to make appointments with their GP or make lengthy journeys to their local hospital.

It’s a growing trend which isn’t going anywhere. By December 2023, The Nuffield Trust estimates that the NHS will have 40-50 virtual ward ‘beds’ per 100,000 people.

What do virtual wards mean for my business?

The move to virtual wards is opening up new opportunities for businesses to get involved in the healthcare sector, particularly those involved in the manufacture of monitoring equipment including oximeters and heart monitors and healthcare providers, including care homes, who can demonstrate a clear technology strategy.

Businesses who can provide data management systems, which ensure patients’ data is managed securely and legally, are also likely to be in high demand.

How can K Low Consulting help me to expand my business?

When it comes to tender bids within the healthcare sector, we can help you to open doors.

We’ve successfully created hundreds of bids for our clients, leading to £1 billion in healthcare contracts for NHS England, Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) and the public health sector.

We work with all stakeholders to fully understand the challenges, using these insights to help our clients showcase their strengths and demonstrate how their business is best-placed to offer the best solutions.

If you would like more information or if would like to be made aware when relevant tender opportunities come up in your industry or field of expertise, contact us today on 0330 1331 041 or info@klowconsulting.com to see find out how we can help you.

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The accelerating role of technology in adult health and social care

Adult health and social care

On 1 December 2021, the government detailed new plans to accelerate the adoption and use of technology within the adult health and social care sector.

These plans were part of the ‘People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform’ white paper, which announced that £150 million of funding would be made available over the next three years to deliver a programme to digitally transform the social care sector.

Building on the ‘Data saves lives: reshaping health and social care with data’ strategy first published in June 2021, the white paper’s plans set out to harness the potential of data in health and care, while maintaining the highest standards of privacy and ethics.

During the pandemic, the adult social care sector began to embrace the digital technologies which became key to people receiving care. According to the white paper, 90 per cent of care providers said they will continue to use technology as they have during the pandemic.

What types of technology are used in health and social care?

The government plans focus on integrating software systems with the NHS and Social Care, enabling a more responsive and integrated approach to delivery. There are multiple workstreams sitting within the approach, for example:

  • Digital Social Care has been working with NHS Transformation Directorate to support the department’s commitment that 80 per cent of adult social care providers will have access to a Shared Care Record by 2024.
  • Third-party providers are creating ever-more innovative systems and technologies. This includes an enhanced role for remote monitoring and engagement (e.g. video assistants); Assistive Technologies (e.g. Augmented communication tools) ; and support platforms (e.g. systems that offer ‘controlled’
  • The roll-out of  Virtual Care Wards. These wards use monitoring technologies (such as Bluetooth enabled heart monitors) to remotely track the physical wellbeing of the individual with their home (or care home) environment. The system is configured to immediately identify ‘out of safe range’ readings, escalating these to the appropriate clinician for review and intervention where needed. This benefits both their quality of life and the ability of hospitals and other care settings to more efficiently manage finite resources and bed space.

Training opportunities for digital technology

Within the white paper, there is a clear recognition that care providers need more support to continue their digital transformation journey, particularly in terms of the need for additional training. This will support the development of digital skills in the social care sector.

This is to play a more prominent role in the Enhanced Health in Care Homes Framework refresh. Placing a greater emphasis developing digital training programmes and leadership qualifications so that the sector has the core technological skills needed to embrace and maximise the benefits of these emergent technologies.

What does this all mean for tendering opportunities?

The implications for tendering are two-fold. Firstly, there is an increasing number of tenders (single provider and framework) focused on identifying and sourcing innovative solutions. A tacit recognition by commissioners that there are technologies they are now currently aware of and so a real opportunity for new market entrants.

Secondly, ‘standard’ services (e.g. Community Care, Supported Living, Residential Care) are requiring bidders to have a clear roadmap to technological integration. This needs to demonstrate both the capital commitments being made alongside clear strategies for roll-out and upskilling of both end-users and the workforce supporting them.  

If you would like to be made aware when relevant tender opportunities come up in your industry or field of expertise, contact us today on 0330 1331 041 or info@klowconsulting.com to see how we can help.

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What is next for adult social care?

Social care

On 7 September 2021, the government set out its new plan for adult social care reform in England. This included a lifetime cap on the amount anyone in England will need to spend on their personal care, alongside a means-test for local authority financial support.

These plans were part of the Build Back Better campaign announced by the government which has been created to repair the health and social care systems following the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Like similar plans to revolutionise Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), the government wants to bring various agencies and organisations together to reform social care.

How will social care be funded?


From October 2023, the government will introduce a new £86,000 cap on the amount anyone in England will need to spend on their personal care over their lifetime.

In addition to this, the upper capital limit (UCL), the point at which people become eligible to receive some financial support from their local authority, will rise to £100,000 from the current £23,250. The UCL of £100,000 will apply universally, irrespective of the circumstances or setting in which an individual receives care. The lower capital limit (LCL), the threshold below which people will not have to pay anything for their care from their assets will increase to £20,000 from £14,250.

As part of these changes, there has been a proposed amendment to the Care Act 2014 to the way that people within the means test progress towards the cap. This amendment, subject to Parliamentary approval, will ensure that only the amount that the individual contributes towards these costs will count towards the cap on care costs, and people do not reach the cap at an artificially faster rate than what they contribute.

To allow people receiving means-tested support to keep more of their own income, the government will unfreeze the Minimum Income Guarantee (MIG) for those receiving care in their own homes and Personal Expenses Allowance (PEA) for care home residents, so that they rise in line with inflation.

The cap will not cover the daily living costs (DLCs) for people in care homes, and people will remain responsible for their daily living costs throughout their care journey, including after they reach the cap. For simplicity, these costs will be set at the equivalent of £200 per week in 2021 prices.

The means test for financial support will continue to work in the same way as it does currently by determining what someone can afford to contribute towards the costs of their care based on their assets and pension.

What else will change?


As well as the Build Back Better policy proposals, the government also released a white paper in March 2022 entitled People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform, which went further to pledge fundamental changes to the social care system in the UK over the next three years.

These include:

  • Investing at least £300 million to integrate housing into local health and care strategies, with a focus on increasing the range of new supported housing options available
  • At least £150 million of additional funding to drive greater adoption of technology and achieve widespread digitisation across social care to support independent living and improve the quality of care
  • Releasing £500 million so the social care workforce have the right training and qualifications
  • A new practical support service to make minor repairs and changes in people’s homes to help people remain independent and safe in their home
  • Increasing the upper limit of the Disabilities Facilities Grant for home adaptations such as stairlifts, wet rooms and home technologies
  • Up to £25 million to support unpaid carers
  • More than £70 million to improve the delivery of care and support services, including assisting local authorities to better plan and develop the support and care options available

What does this all mean for tendering opportunities?


With additional funding for adult social care products and services being released, that can only mean one thing – more tender opportunities and potential contracts.

Pushing the adoption of technology, training and qualifications and working with local authorities to develop support services all present fantastic opportunities for organisations in those areas.

If you would like to be made aware when relevant tender opportunities come up in your industry or field of expertise, contact us today on 0330 1331 041 or info@klowconsulting.com to see how we can help.

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Integrated care systems – what direction are things moving in?

Integrated Care Systems

In 2019, the NHS set out plans to revolutionise Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) as part of its Long Term Plan.

The proposals included:

  • Giving people more control over their own health and the care they receive
  • Encouraging more collaboration between GPs, their teams and community services, as ‘primary care networks’ to increase the services they can provide jointly
  • Increasing the focus on NHS organisations working with their local partners, such as Councils, as ‘Integrated Care Systems’, to plan and deliver services which meet the needs of their communities

Since the plan was first published in January 2019, health and social care are both areas that have been massively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, making the idea of a care system that is better integrated and gives patients more choice and control over their own healthcare sound almost impossible at this point in time.

In February 2022, a white paper was published entitledIntegration and innovation: working together to improve health and social care for all, which sets out legislative proposals for a new Health and Care Bill, which will make the legislation set out in the paper become law.

The paper held the pandemic up as an example of what could be achieved if everyone in the health and care systems pulled together. It also recognised that there was a lot to be done to rebuild these decimated systems to not only get them back to where they were pre-pandemic, but to better than they have ever been.

How exactly will it work?

According to the February white paper, ‘instead of working independently, every part of the NHS, public health and social care system should continue to seek out ways to connect, communicate and collaborate so that the health and care needs of people are met’ and ‘health and care services, local government, NHS bodies, and others (will) work ever more closely together…with common purpose and in partnership’.

The Bill sets up a series of Integrated Care Systems to cover England. The ICSs will include an Integrated Care Board (ICB) which will assume the commissioning responsibilities currently undertaken by clinical commissioning groups. There will also be an Integrated Care Partnership (ICP), a secondary part of the system intended to give a voice to the wider health and care community.

Place level commissioning within an integrated care system will align geographically to a local authority boundary and the Better Care Fund (BCF) plan will provide a tool for agreeing priorities. This will be further supported by other measures including improvements in data sharing and enshrining a ‘triple aim’ for NHS organisations to support better health and wellbeing for everyone, better quality of health services for all, and sustainable use of NHS resources.

The future

The new legislative proposals in the paper that will be upheld by the Health and Care Bill ‘aim to build on the incredible collaborations we have seen through COVID’ and ‘shape a system that’s better able to serve people in a fast-changing world’.

The Bill also builds upon the original proposals made in the Long Term Plan and also looks at issues such as ‘removing transactional bureaucracy’ to make purchasing decisions easier, making better use of technology to support staff and patient care, and pledges to address staff shortages.

These are all potential opportunities from a tender or Framework point of view.

But, with a more ‘integrated’ system comes more partners and organisations. With the NHS, local authorities, the voluntary sector and others all working together to provide health and social care products and services in local areas, who will act as the Commissioner in a potential tender situation? If you are accepted onto one Framework, will you be eligible to join others?

One thing is for sure, tenders in health and social care are changing and we need to stay abreast of these changes.

Here are some suggested links for further reading:

For more information or to discuss how we can work with your organisation to help you win and manage health and social care contracts, contact us today on 0330 1331 041 or info@klowconsulting.com.

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NHS waiting lists could result in tender opportunities

We’ve all seen the worrying headlines about the growth in NHS waiting lists following the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic.

Just this week it has been reported in the national news that the number of people on NHS waiting lists hit a 12-year high. At least 162,000 patients are waiting more than a year for routine operations and the total NHS waiting list for routine treatments reached 4.4 million at the end of October. More than a third of those patients had been waiting more than 18 weeks – the NHS target for waiting times, from referral to treatment.

As the NHS continues to suspend operations as it tackles the Coronavirus epidemic, experts are expecting to see these waiting list figures rise even further in 2021.

To tackle this growing problem, NHS bosses need to introduce additional capacity into the system and one of the ways they are looking to do this is through a concept called insourcing.

What is insourcing?

Similar to outsourcing, insourcing would see the hospital ask an external provider to get an activity, contract or job completed on their behalf using their own people and equipment. The difference with insourcing is that the external company would bring their own people and equipment to the hospital and manage everything on the hospital’s own site.

This is a growing concept and one which we can reasonably expect to see taking a strong foothold in the NHS in 2021 as it struggles to bring down the growing waiting lists.

What does the growth of NHS insourcing mean for businesses?

The growth of insourcing by the NHS is likely to present some tender opportunities for private companies or medical professionals in the healthcare industry.

The types of services that hospitals are looking to secure support with could include:

  • NHS inpatient and outpatient (including full supporting pathology and imaging) services and urgent elective care and cancer treatment to service users in line with nationally set criteria; and
  • NHS inpatient non-elective care (either direct admission or transfer from an NHS organisation).

Forward-thinking businesses in the health sector have already identified insourcing as a growing area. For example, UK and Ireland healthcare service provider, Totally, launched its new insourcing venture, Totally Healthcare, in October. It said it was starting the venture primarily to reduce NHS waiting times by providing a range of procedures and services within NHS hospitals, taking advantage of spare capacity typically during weekends and bank holidays. A few weeks ago, it revealed its insourcing services have secured significant contracts across its target markets and it now classes itself as ‘key partners’ to the NHS.

Who does the NHS want to work with?

NHS Commissioners are open to working with private providers of all sizes, for a wide range of clinical activities across the country. There are national frameworks like NHS SBS aimed at all size organisations and locations, alternatively we have seen individual NHS Trusts selecting exclusive providers to meet their local requirements.

All indications are that we will see insourcing playing a greater role in the immediate future of the NHS as part of its efforts to bring waiting lists down.

If you need help with commercial bid writing, get in touch with K Low Consulting today to see how we can assist you.

Contact info@klowconsulting.com or give us a call on 0330 133 1041.