What to do if your health and social care tender process is abandoned
There are few things more frustrating than commissioners abandoning a tender process close to, or following, the submission deadline. No result. No ecstatic win celebration. No drawing a line under a loss. Just a bid left hanging in the air with no outcome. If your company finds itself in this position, make sure you make the best of a bad situation and take action to improve your chances of future success. The tips below will help you focus on your next steps.
Can councils, CCGs and other public sector commissioners just abandon the tender?
Unfortunately, the simple answer is ‘yes’. Our bid writers focus on helping our clients win health and social care tenders. Every tender we work on contains a statement which covers commissioners in the event they wish to cancel the process. The following extracts from homecare tenders we’ve worked on reveal the clauses used:
“The Council reserves the right not to award a contract.”
“The Council reserve the right at their absolute discretion to accept or not accept any Tender Response submitted, not to award a contract, or to award to only part of the contract.”
“Specifically, the Authority reserves the right not to award the contract on the intended dates, or at all.”
“We will (subject to our right not to make an award at all) first make a provisional award to the tenderer achieving the highest Total Score. The standstill period will commence when we send our provisional award decision to each tenderer. Our provisional award decision is not binding on us and we may decide not to award the contract at all or, in the event of an error or misjudgement being identified, change our provisional award decision prior to award.”
Why are some tenders cancelled?
There are many reasons why tenders may be abandoned including a change in budgets (e.g. local authority allocations), too few tenders received, bidders costs being abnormally high or low, environmental considerations (e.g. Covid-19 pandemic), and other reasons.
What should I do now?
If your tender is abandoned, all is not lost. There are actions you should take which will still enable your company to benefit from the process:
- Ask commissioners as many questions as you need to understand the underlying reasons for the cancellation. This will help you to decide if it will be worth re-bidding once the tender is published again.
- All bidders should ask for their evaluation scores (if evaluation has been completed) so they can identify what needs to improve in any future submission. It is rare for these to be automatically released when a tender process is abandoned, so be proactive and ask!
- Identify the timeframe for the re-tender so you can fully prepare for its re-issue (in our experience this is usually within a few months or a year, but one recent homecare tender was issued two years after it was abandoned). Collect case studies, performance data and other pieces of evidence so you are fully prepared for when the tender next goes live.
- Use the additional time to position your organisation so it has the best chance of success. This may include developing local partnerships, attending relevant stakeholder meetings, opening a local office, ensuring new Care Quality Commission inspections achieve ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ ratings, improving your services in response to service user feedback etc. Keep a log of your development activities which can be used to evidence statements you make in your next tender.
- Plan the resources required to re-write and re-submit your bid once the tender is re-published. This may include in-house resources or outsourced bid writers.
Be prepared to go again!
While an abandoned tender process may feel like a huge disappointment, bidders should try and make best of a bad situation and use the experience to their advantage. Once the tender is live again, you should be in a better position to increase your chances of winning.
If you need help to win your next health and social care tender, contact BFT Consult today.
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