Procurement Act Guide for Care Providers

The Procurement Act 2023 is not a rebrand. It changes the rules your bids are evaluated against.

The Procurement Act 2023 replaced the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 as the governing framework for public procurement in England and Wales. For care providers bidding on local authority or NHS contracts, the practical impact covers how opportunities are published and found, how qualification evidence is structured, how bids are evaluated, and how contracts are managed and modified after award.

If you continue submitting bids as though PCR 2015 still applies, your responses will reference outdated terminology, miss new scoring mechanisms, and use pre-qualification documents that no longer address the right categories. This guide closes that gap.

Who this is for

This guide is written for health and social care organisations bidding on publicly funded contracts: domiciliary care providers, supported living operators, residential care providers, and care SMEs entering public procurement for the first time. If you deliver care services funded by local authorities or NHS bodies, the rules governing how those contracts are advertised and awarded have changed.

What the guide covers

The central digital platform. All procurement notices now publish through a single central platform rather than Contracts Finder and Find a Tender separately. The guide covers how to register, configure sector-relevant alerts, and use pipeline notices — advance publications that give early sight of upcoming contracts, sometimes months before the formal tender opens.

New procedure types. PCR 2015’s five procedure types are replaced by two: the Open Procedure and the Competitive Flexible Procedure. The Competitive Flexible Procedure gives authorities significant discretion to run multi-stage, negotiated procurements. Each tender may look different from the last. The guide explains what to expect and how to prepare when the procedure is less predictable.

Qualification and exclusion. The mandatory exclusion grounds have been expanded and restructured. Documentation requirements — CQC registration, DBS records, insurance, safeguarding policies — remain essential, but need to be framed against the new exclusion categories rather than PCR 2015 equivalents.

Evaluation. Most Advantageous Tender (MAT) replaces MEAT as the formal standard. Social value is increasingly weighted in care tenders. The guide covers how to identify social value requirements, what commissioners expect from care providers specifically, and how to document contributions in a way that scores against formal criteria.

Contract management transparency. KPI information for certain contracts is now published. Incumbents defending contracts need to know their performance data may be visible to challengers. The guide covers the implications for both positions.

How to apply this guide

Use this as a reference during bid planning to check which procedure applies, what qualification evidence is required, and how evaluation criteria are likely to be structured. Share it with your bid lead and relevant directors as the basis for a 30-minute team briefing. Keep it alongside your bid planning checklist.

For deeper analysis of specific areas, see our insight articles on the Procurement Act 2023, the Competitive Flexible Procedure, and the Provider Selection Regime.

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This guide is updated to reflect the current implementation status of the Procurement Act 2023. Last reviewed March 2026.