The Procurement Act 2023: What Health and Care Providers Need to Know

📜 The Procurement Act 2023: What Health and Care Providers Need to Know

Now live from February 2025, the Procurement Act 2023 reshapes how public bodies — including the NHS and local authorities — buy health and care services. For providers, it isn’t “extra bureaucracy”; it’s a clear signal to prepare earlier, evidence more robustly, and align tenders with the new principle of the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT). This cornerstone guide explains what has changed, how the process now flows under the live regime, and how bidders can adapt to stay competitive.

Before you refresh your templates, it’s also worth revisiting the fundamentals behind strong submissions: bid writing principles and tender strategy. Under the new regime, the providers who do best are the ones who combine clear, compliant writing with an evidence system that makes outcomes and governance easy to verify.

⚖️ Why the Procurement Act matters for health and care providers

The Procurement Act 2023 replaces the Public Contracts Regulations (PCR 2015) for covered procurements and introduces a more unified approach to public contracting. For health and care providers, the practical implications are:

• More transparency across the whole lifecycle — not just at award.
• More flexibility in procedure design — but with clear expectations of fairness and auditability.
• A stronger focus on “advantage” — value, public benefit and outcomes alongside cost.
• Greater post-award visibility — performance, changes and governance will matter more in public records and reviews.

Commissioners will often have more discretion, but also more accountability through published notices, evaluation summaries and contract management information. That combination raises the bar for providers: your quality story needs to stand up not only in the tender room, but in the public record.

🧭 The core objectives (old vs new language)

Under the older PCR framing, the familiar principles were transparency, equal treatment, non-discrimination and proportionality. The Act refreshes the objectives and makes them feel more “outcomes and public benefit” oriented:

• 🔹 Value for money — across the whole contract lifecycle, not just price.
• 🔹 Public benefit — social value, outcomes and wider impact.
• 🔹 Transparency — publication of opportunities, decisions, changes and (in many cases) performance.
• 🔹 Integrity — ethical conduct and stronger controls around conflicts and misconduct.
• 🔹 Fair treatment of suppliers — competition and proportionality preserved.

In practice, many commissioners now expect bidders to show how service design delivers benefits that matter locally (workforce, prevention, inclusion, community resilience), and how those benefits will be measured and reported.

📊 From PCR 2015 to Procurement Act 2023 — key differences

🧮 The new procurement flow (what you’ll see in practice)

The Act supports a clearer lifecycle with more published touchpoints. Depending on the procurement type and route, you can expect to see more structured notices and more visible evaluation logic. A typical pattern looks like:

1. Planning signal: an early indication that a framework, DPS-style route, or contract is coming (helpful for pipeline planning).
2. Tender launch notice: the competition opens with published criteria, timelines and participation requirements.
3. Procedure stages: under the competitive flexible procedure, you may see one stage or multiple stages (selection, dialogue/clarification, final tenders).
4. Award notice + summary rationale: clearer publication around award decisions and (often) more meaningful summaries than providers historically received.
5. Standstill: a short window for clarification/challenge in line with the procurement approach.
6. Contract management visibility: increasing expectation that performance, KPIs and material changes are documented and (where required) published.

What this means commercially: you are no longer competing only at tender submission. You are competing through your evidence and governance — because performance and changes may be more visible and more frequently reviewed.

🧠 What “Most Advantageous Tender” really means in health and care

MAT is not “social value as a bolt-on slide”. In health and care, “advantage” usually shows up as commissioner confidence that you can deliver safe, stable outcomes under pressure — and that you can evidence that delivery without drama.

In practical scoring terms, MAT-aligned tenders often reward providers who can show:

• Outcomes that matter (independence, stability, reduced escalation, improved experience).
• Reliability (time-to-start, continuity, rota resilience, safe mobilisation).
• Governance and assurance (audits, supervision cadence, learning loops, escalation pathways).
• Workforce stability (retention, training compliance, competence sign-off, wellbeing).
• Public benefit (local jobs, apprenticeships, partnerships, inclusion, prevention impact).

Done well, “advantage” becomes a simple, defensible story: this provider is safe, controlled, outcomes-led, and brings measurable public benefit.

🏥 NHS and local authority commissioning: what providers should watch for

In practice, health and care markets can involve different routes and rule sets depending on what is being procured (for example, some healthcare services may follow specific selection rules alongside wider public procurement requirements). The safe approach for providers is to:

• Read the notice carefully and identify the stated procurement route and evaluation method.
• Mirror the authority’s language (MAT, public benefit, transparency, integrity, fair treatment) rather than relying on older MEAT-era phrasing.
• Expect more publication and comparability — which means your evidence must be consistent and auditable.

🧱 Writing bids under the new Act: what changes in your method statements

The fastest way to improve scoring under MAT is to move from “policy claims” to “operational proof”. Use a consistent pattern in your answers:

• What we do (your operating model in plain English).
• How we control risk (governance, escalation, audits, competence checks).
• How we measure outcomes (small set of KPIs and person-centred outcomes).
• How we learn and improve (themes, actions, closure, re-audit).
• How we deliver public benefit (quantified, local, attributable).

Examples of MAT-aligned phrasing that tends to score well

• “We publish a monthly KPI dashboard covering time-to-start, missed visits, continuity, safeguarding themes and satisfaction, reviewed at quality governance with actions tracked to closure.”
• “We evidence progression through person-centred goals, reviewed at 4–6 weeks and then on a scheduled/triggered cycle, with outcomes reported quarterly to the commissioner.”
• “Our social value plan commits to X apprenticeships and Y local hires, tracked quarterly with retention and progression metrics.”

🔍 Transparency and performance: why contract management is now a bid issue

Historically, providers treated “contract management” as something that happened after award. Under the current direction of travel, contract management is part of procurement credibility because performance and changes are more visible and more scrutinised.

Build a retention-ready evidence model

1. Define a tight KPI set you can sustain (avoid “dashboard fantasy”).
2. Standardise governance artefacts: audit plan, supervision matrix, incident learning log, complaints themes.
3. Run a quarterly cadence: dashboard + short narrative + two case studies + social value update.
4. Create an evidence library you can reuse in call-offs, reviews and re-procurement.

Why this matters: commissioners can defend continuity when providers can prove outcomes and control. Under MAT-style thinking, that proof becomes a competitive advantage.

📅 Timelines and transition: what to do if procurements span the change

Contracts advertised before a regime change typically continue under the rules they were procured under until expiry, while new opportunities follow the new approach. The practical point for providers is straightforward:

• Don’t run two different “bid languages” internally. Update your master templates to MAT-ready wording and evidence patterns now, then tailor per tender.
• Expect mixed markets in the short term. Some authorities will move faster than others; your bid team should be ready for both older-style and MAT-style frameworks.

🧾 Feedback, debrief and challenge: what changes for learning

One of the most provider-friendly shifts is the move toward clearer publication and clearer summary rationale around decisions. While formal challenge remains possible, many commissioners will aim to reduce disputes by making evaluation logic easier to understand. For providers, that means:

• Better learning from losses (if you capture it properly).
• More importance placed on internal “bid retrospectives” and evidence improvements.
• A stronger need to keep your own audit trail clean (version control, attachments, data sources).

📘 Case example: learning disability framework (how MAT shows up)

Old pattern: Evaluation 60% quality / 40% price, feedback limited to headline marks.
New pattern you may increasingly see: Evaluation weighted toward quality/outcomes, with published reasoning along the lines of: “Bidder B scored higher for assurance and workforce stability; KPI evidence supported sustainability.”
Result: Bidders who can show operational control and outcomes evidence tend to perform better — and can learn more clearly when they don’t.

💡 How to prepare now (practical steps)

1. Refresh core templates: align language to MAT, public benefit, transparency, integrity and fair treatment.
2. Strengthen governance “proof”: audits, supervision cadence, incident learning loops, complaints themes, and action closure.
3. Build a KPI set you can sustain: define each KPI, its source, and reporting cadence.
4. Upgrade social value: quantify commitments, map to local priorities, report quarterly.
5. Improve your evidence library: outcome-led case studies with consent trail; commissioner-friendly one-page summaries.
6. Pipeline earlier: treat planning signals as a trigger to update evidence, not just to “watch the market”.

🧩 Common misunderstandings to avoid

• ❌ “MAT just means adding social value paragraphs.” Not enough — MAT rewards proof of outcomes, control and delivery confidence.
• ❌ “We’ll sort evidence after we win.” Increasingly risky — post-award performance and change control are more visible.
• ❌ “Cheaper always wins.” Price still matters, but advantage is broader; quality, workforce stability and governance can be decisive.
• ❌ “Transparency only affects commissioners.” It affects provider reputation and competitive position too.

🧭 Key takeaways

• 📜 The Procurement Act 2023 reshapes procurement language and expectations across public contracting.
• ⚖️ Most Advantageous Tender rewards measurable quality, outcomes and public benefit — not just cost.
• 🔍 Transparency increases: your governance and performance story must stand up publicly.
• 🧱 Providers who build an evidence cadence (KPIs, audits, case studies, social value reporting) are better positioned for frameworks, call-offs and continuity.