Healthcare & care tenders in the South East

Healthcare buying in the South East runs through a landscape that was redrawn in April 2026, when six integrated care boards were consolidated into four: NHS Kent and Medway, NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight, NHS Surrey and Sussex (the merger of the former Surrey Heartlands and Sussex systems) and NHS Thames Valley. Below the ICBs sit the acute trusts that place the bulk of clinical, estates and facilities work - East Kent Hospitals and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells in Kent, Royal Surrey and Surrey and Sussex Healthcare across the Surrey border, University Hospitals Sussex on the coast, and Hampshire Hospitals to the west. For a supplier this reorganisation matters: contract vehicles, incumbents and requirement owners have shifted, and the notices reflect a system still bedding in.

The distinctive route to market here is the region's own not-for-profit hub, NHS Commercial Solutions, based in the South East and now part of the NHS Commercial Alliance alongside the East of England Collaborative Procurement Hub. Much collaborative supplies, estates and clinical-services work is aggregated through it rather than advertised trust-by-trust, sitting alongside the national spines of NHS Shared Business Services and HealthTrust Europe, and pharmacy demand routed through the South East Pharmacy Procurement Service. Clinical service contracts are also increasingly awarded under the NHS Provider Selection Regime rather than open competition, so reading which regime a notice sits under is half the battle before you decide whether to bid.

The care side is a separate market again, commissioned by the county councils - Kent, Hampshire, Surrey and West Sussex - largely through adult social care Dynamic Purchasing Systems for domiciliary care, supported living and residential placements, where being on the DPS is the price of entry. This side is unsettled: Surrey's county and districts are due to become two unitary authorities in 2027, with reorganisation still pending across Kent, Medway and Sussex, so commissioning geographies and framework refreshes are in flux. Pairing the ICB and trust portals with NHS Commercial Solutions, the council care DPS routes and a watch on Find a Tender is the only realistic way to see the whole South East health and care pipeline.