Bid Management for Health and Social Care

Hire DKJ as your bid management consultancy to help you prepare, write and win bids. Our experts develop cost-effective strategies to prepare and write winning bids for your tenders.

Bidding for work in the health and social care sector can be challenging. Even for larger organisations that have staff in-house bidding for them week in, week out. So how do you successfully search, prepare, write and win bids if you’re a lone manager already working flat out on other tasks and operational work? You could choose to rely on DKJ.

Writing winning bids has been our bread and butter since 2014 (and many years before that). We live and breathe health and social care, so together, this expertise can help you understand – and us to ‘sell’ – your valuable offer and ultimately win the bid. And we’ve won hundreds of them for clients!

Trusted By

DKJ Support Services are extremely professional in their approach. They have taken time to listen to our needs and responded very quickly, putting together a well-constructed and comprehensive funding bid. We have been so impressed with their work and will continue to use their services in the future

Israel Silgram

Oxygen Housing

Our Support at a Glance

From navigating the intricate details of service delivery models to ensuring your bid ticks every box, we’ve got you covered. Our full spectrum of bid management services includes:

Full Bid Management

We take on the heavy lifting from start to finish. Document handling, content curation, and final submission? Consider it done.

Content Development

We collaborate with your experts to create stellar responses that showcase your strengths compellingly.

Critical Friend Review

Our eagle eyes catch what others might miss, providing constructive feedback to perfect your bid before you hit submit.

Service Modelling

Winning isn’t just about ticking boxes. It’s about painting a picture of the exceptional service you’re offering. Our service modelling makes sure your bid stands out.

Case Studies

We have a lot of experience supporting health and social care teams with their bid management. Read about some of our projects below:

Introduction & Problem

We were commissioned by a chain of pharmacies to support them to bid for a new HIV service across the East of England.

The Process

The bid management service included developing a bid plan, coordinating Subject Matter Experts, confirming that statutory and mandatory information was up to date and compliant and making sure key deadlines were met.

As the service was new, we project managed a series of service modelling workshops. During these sessions, we story boarded the end to end delivery of the service and articulated this within the tender so that the commissioners could understand in plain English the service they would receive.

The Results

This was a successful bid and the client is now delivering this service across the contract region stretching from Kings Lynn south to Cambridge and East to the Suffolk coast.

We have been recommissioned by the client for further bid management support.

Introduction & Problem

We recently supported a UK-based “Software as a Service” provider with a bid to develop and deliver a Telephone Advice & Guidance service to a London ICB. The service required a digital solution to support Primary Care professionals, from GPs to paramedics, with specialist queries accessing direct support from NHS Consultants working either locally or nationally dependent on capacity and availability

The Process

With a word count of over 30,000 as well as attachments, we implemented a robust project management approach to ensure Subject Matter Experts and wider support teams were accessed in a timely way to gather information proactively and begin response development as quickly as possible. Our approach ensured first drafts were available 2-weeks prior to deadline allowing significant time to undertake quality reviews and develop increasingly strong 2nd, 3rd and final drafts for the bid.

The Results

This was a successful bid and the client is now delivering this service across the contract region.

We have been recommissioned by the client for further bid management support.

Introduction & Problem

DKJ were commissioned to support a global digital healthcare company developing their bid to deliver digital Mental Health support platforms in Yorkshire. We were commissioned based on our expertise, experience and proven track record in the healthcare sector.

The Process

The bid management service included developing a bid plan, coordinating Subject Matter Experts, confirming that statutory and mandatory information was up to date and compliant and making sure key deadlines were met. We managed the full submission working across time zones between the west coast of USA and the UK.

The Results

The bid was successful and is the organisations first award in this area of specialism. Indeed, undertaking the bid was initially described as a learning exercise with the intention of introducing experience into the team for future bids with minimal expectations for success. As a result of this award, DKJ have subsequently supported one of the organisations subdivisions to access the NHS Insourcing framework and provide remote Consultant support to GPs and other professionals.

Introduction & Problem

We were approached by a GP Federation to support them in bidding for a large primary care tender spanning three GP practices in Merseyside for Alternative Provider Medical Services (APMS).

As an existing client, we already had an in-depth understanding of their work and their strengths as a primary care provider. Nevertheless, the bid process ensured discussions at length to accurately reflect their ability to deliver the high-quality provision being sought by the Commissioning Support Unit.

A key element of this tender involved consideration of the differing socio-economic demographics between the three areas, and the ways in which this impacted local health care needs. 

The key focus was reflecting the GP Federation as a responsive provider, being able to adapt to local healthcare challenges (such as a relatively high proportion of SAS patients in one region), in addition to building on opportunities for improved health outcomes across all regions.

The Process

An initial meeting was arranged to lay the groundwork for the bid. During initial meetings we field any questions a client may have about the tender. We’re often asked for our input on topics such as demonstrating social value or how we might counter a problematic CQC result; at other times, clients may express concern around elements of the tender (such as Commissioner budget feasibility or what may seem a particularly tight deadline).

Kick off meetings may also involve speculative discussion around potential competitor providers that may be bidding, in order to establish a full picture of how and where we can illustrate strengths over and above competing bid submissions.

A shared file space was created on SharePoint for collaborative work between the DKJ team, and a bid plan was developed to provide an ‘at-a-glance’ understanding of bid progression, roadblocks and additional information that should be sought.

With extensive experience in writing bids for APMS, the tender developed at pace and without issue. However, the process demanded more research than in comparable bids in relation to the health needs of the differing communities. 

The bid responses were developed to a draft stage, at which point the client’s input was sought to address any knowledge gaps, and to provide any other feedback on the responses as a whole.

Further follow-up meetings were arranged with the key client stakeholders to refine the content.

The Results

The work is currently still ongoing, and we will update you with the final outcome soon!

Introduction & Problem

We were approached by a GP Practice based in the West Midlands as they wanted help to create a business case to improve their current diabetes services and improve patient outcomes in the local area.

The Process

The Practice needed a business case to improve their current diabetes services so they wanted to make sure that the costs were worth it, and they wanted to know what we could do to help them get started.

We met with the clinical director at the Practice and discussed how we could help them prepare for their next steps. We reviewed the current diabetes pathway for the local area, proposed costs for 1 year + Pilot, and made plans for short and long-term planning. We agreed on timelines and worked through workforce needs and responsibilities. We researched the service and why it was needed, and we provided a case for the service.

The Results

The work is currently still ongoing, we will share the outcome with you soon!

Bid Management FAQs

We offer support tailored to your needs and identified following our initial discussion. We can help as little or as much as you need from full management and registering your interest to submission, through to a review of your content and documentation prior to submission.

Yes and no – while you understand your market and pricing better than DKJ does, you can bounce pricing ideas off us and ask us to provide assurance and advice if you feel it would be helpful.

Yes – while health and social care forms the bulk of our work, we’ve supported bids in sectors ranging from IT services and construction to cleaning services. We believe this cross sector knowledge adds extra value by having the ability to share new or innovative ideas and dynamic content.

As experienced bid writers, we know the priority is answering the question. Many of our clients have a clear idea of what they want to write and how good they are, but we provide the special sauce in crafting that knowledge and content into addressing what the commissioner is actually looking for.

Once you’ve contacted DKJ, we will:

  1. Request the tender paperwork or your credentials for the portal you’re working on. 
  2. Assess the requirements based on word, page or character counts if specified. 
  3. Quote (based around words per day) and once given the go-ahead, will create a bid plan and timeline for tasks. Proactive communication ensures you always feel informed, and know where we’re upto and what we need from you.

Need help with your bid?