Healthcare & care tenders in the East Midlands

Health buying in the East Midlands is anchored by the region's five Integrated Care Boards - NHS Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, NHS Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, NHS Derby and Derbyshire, NHS Lincolnshire and NHS Northamptonshire - and by a set of very large acute trusts sitting beneath them. University Hospitals of Leicester, Nottingham University Hospitals, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, Kettering General Hospital and Northampton General Hospital are among the biggest employers and buyers in the region, and clinical work here is increasingly commissioned through the NHS Provider Selection Regime rather than the old competitive-tender rules, which changes how a provider positions a bid.

Most trust and ICB purchasing runs through the national NHS routes rather than a single regional portal: frameworks and call-offs via NHS Shared Business Services, HealthTrust Europe and NHS Commercial Solutions, with above-threshold notices publishing on Find a Tender. That means a health or care supplier needs to watch the framework mini-competitions and the national notices together, because the same buyer - say University Hospitals of Leicester or Nottingham University Hospitals - may run one requirement as a framework call-off and the next as an open procurement.

Social care is a different pipeline again. Adult social care, home care, supported living and children's placements are commissioned by the county and unitary councils - Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and the city councils - typically through dynamic purchasing systems and approved-provider lists rather than one-off tenders, and a good deal of the corporate and non-clinical spend surfaces on EastMids Tenders (ProContract) and the region's ESPO frameworks. For a smaller provider the practical edge is watching the council care DPS routes and the local portal alongside the NHS frameworks, so nothing that fits gets missed.