Hello, and welcome to Talking digital health, a podcast by law firm Mills & Reeve, hosted by health and tech lawyers, Sophie Burton-Jones and Charlotte Lewis.
Our aim on this podcast is to discuss key topics of interest to those procuring tech in the NHS, and also those selling tech to the NHS.
I'm Sophie Burton-Jones. And I'm Charlotte Lewis, and we're your hosts for this episode.
We're delighted to be joined by Nathalia Pereira, a principal associate in the Mills & Reeve procurement team who specialises in procurement law.
Thank you for having me.
We're very, very delighted to have you. Thank you very much for joining us.
In this episode of Talking digital health, we'll be talking about bidding for NHS contracts and how to get on NHS frameworks when you're all ready to start selling a new health tech product into the NHS market.
First off, Nathalia, where can suppliers find NHS contract opportunities?
That's a great opening question. So to begin with, it's the same for all public bodies and the NHS entities are no different. They publish their contract opportunities on Find a Tender. That's a digital platform where contract opportunities are advertised and also on contracts finder. So basically, if there's an opportunity which is worth more than £118,000, that will be on Find a Tender. And if you're a supplier, you can register to make sure that you don't miss opportunities and you receive e-mail updates. about sundry opportunities coming through.
What if there's a framework available? Could we use that instead of going out to market?
Well, yes, that's a really good question. If there's a framework available, then I would say yes, you can use it as long as you follow the rules of that framework. Using that framework compliantly will be really important.
For example, If that framework only allows for mini-competitions, then you wouldn't be able to just do a direct award to the supplier that you wanted to. And if you were going to run a mini-competition, again, you'd have to follow the rules of that particular framework. But generally speaking, yes, the framework options always there.
And if you've worked with a customer before, for example, on a pilot or a trial or something like that, are you still going to have to potentially put forward a full bid for an opportunity?
Usually, yes. The main thing is it really does depend on the instructions in your tender documents that authorities published. Make sure, if you're a supplier, that you do read those very carefully. But the best approach to take is to assume that evaluator who's going to be marking your bid has no knowledge of you and has no knowledge of your product or your service and just go into that almost like you're answering an exam question when you're writing your bid.
It can often feel, and that's quite a good example, that bid processes are better suited for larger and more well-established suppliers.
If you're a digital health startup, is there anything specific you can do to improve your chances?
Oh, that's a really good question. It is quite tricky and I've got a lot of sympathy for kind of those smaller or startup companies. There's actually a really good link which the government's published called How to Bid for Government Contracts as an SME Effectively, which I would really recommend to any kind of entity, not just kind of digital tech entities. But generally there's a few different things you can do at different points in the tendering cycle. So to begin with, if your future customer is carrying out any market engagement, then definitely get involved like. take part in that.
If they're asking, sending out questionnaires or having supplier days or bidder days, make sure that you get involved in those because that's really your opportunity to potentially influence the process in a fair way. You know, because other suppliers are also able to do that. So that is one really good thing to do to kind of get a bit of an edge and to also get an understanding of how these processes work.
And that leads me on to that next point really, which is having or gaining a knowledge of how public procurement works. So that means getting familiar with some of the regulations and potentially the new app coming after the end of February 2025 and making sure that you really read the documents, make sure you understand what's being asked for and when, and understanding the real rules of the process. And if you're not sure, then ask for clarification. And there's usually a clarification deadline by which you can send questions to the authority.
And am I right, Nathalia, that I think the government and the NHS quite often have webinars and things like that to help suppliers with how to bid for their contracts as well? So there is some free stuff available out there.
Yes, definitely, Sophie, there's lots of free stuff out there, and particularly in the wake of the new act, there's lots of supplier guidance online and videos and lots of useful information which supports any supplier, regardless of their size, would find really useful. It's a case of, even though what you're doing is selling what you offer, you are also trying to make it as easy as possible for the person looking at your bid, able to just to tick things off their list of requirements. So there's lots of ways that you can do that as long as you just follow the rules which are set out in that documentation.
What are some of the biggest mistakes that you commonly see suppliers make in their bids?
Oh, there are so many. Biggest mistakes.
Okay – not answering the question, just providing marketing info. That will definitely not win you the points that you need.
Two, assuming the authority will rely on their knowledge of you. So if you already have a relationship with them, just assuming that they know you, they like you, they know you can do what they need.
Another one, copying and pasting from other bids. They're really not tailoring the response. Not really understanding the consequences of, for example, a pass or fail. So in some tender documents, a fail on one question could mean exclusion from the whole of the process. It could have a really serious consequence. So really understanding how the scoring works.
Sometimes there is threshold scoring. So if you score below a minimum number, you might then get booted out. It's really understanding how those rules work. Not making the most of the pre-market engagement process, as we've already mentioned, not raising clarifications in good time, not being familiar with the portal that the authority is using and leaving it to the last minute to upload your tender. That's a really common one and just running out of time or realising that your files are too big to upload and that sort of thing.
So, being really organised is quite important.
Another mistake I see is actually putting the B team on bid writing duties. When you're dividing up labour, particularly if you're feeling confident about a bid, you might not be putting your best team forward, especially if you're an incumbent actually, that can be really disappointing for your authority and they just can't give you the mark. So yeah, those are just a few of the questions.
Really, really useful advice.
I think it all goes back to you're only going to be marked or scored on the words on the page to make sure, you know, best effort in and answer the questions and focus on the scoring and that sort of thing are really, really useful.
Thank you.
It's a bit like being back at school.
It is. They linked to what you said there about the biggest mistakes.
As a specialist procurement advisor, I guess what, on the flip of that, what are your top tips to digital health startups navigating public vector bid processes for the first time?
Read the question.
Read the specification.
Read the evaluation methodology.
And those are the three really important things because all of those are linked together because you need to look at all of those in order to answer the question. So usually when you're answering the question, you should be referring to the specification to work out, to pull bits out and kind of use the language that they're using in order for them to know that you're ticking all the requirements they're being asked for.
Read the evaluation methodology, understand what gets you a higher score. So treat it like an exam. Structure your answers with headings and bullet points so that evaluators can tick off each requirement.
Raise clarifications if something's not clear.
Do that in good time.
Make sure you're properly registered on the portal. And you know, the flip side is obviously that means uploading your submission in good time and also have really clearly defined roles within your bid team. So it's often really useful to have someone whose job it is to check the communications on the portal, to respond to authority clarifications in a timely manner for somebody to proofread your bid as well.
That's a really common mistake that people just rush it and they don't have a sense check. There's different types of proofreading, isn't there? There's a normal spelling and grammar one, but there's also, does this make sense? Have I actually answered the question? And so getting kind of a peer review is a really top tip, I would say.
Nathalia, if I could just ask one final question, specifically on frameworks actually. So obviously there are lots of public sector frameworks available which NHS organisations use to buy goods and services.
Is there anything specific to frameworks that would change what you've just said or does that advice still apply when you're bidding to join a framework?
I think when you're bidding to join a framework, all of that advice really just does apply. So all these entities, like NHS, SBS, that's the big one that set up all these frameworks and that sort of thing.
They're not doing anything different to any other public body who's procuring. You know, they still have to follow the same procurement rules and they are still expecting you as a supplier to align your bid to the specific requirements of the framework. So it's all about still just tailoring your responses. It might be the case that for certain joining a framework type questions, there might be more general questions rather than the more specific questions you might see for, example, a call off contract. But all that means is that you have to then make sure that you're really demonstrating your expertise, you're demonstrating your capability and kind of showcasing that to your best ability. But really no difference, I would say.
Although I guess in theory, if you get it wrong on a framework opportunity, you're potentially losing out on a lot more business than a one-off contract. So all the things that you've been talking about are really important there.
It's even more important because it's that whole pipeline, isn't there? And then you're kind of blocked out effectively for up to four years. So I guess maybe it's even more important, as you say, to take advantage of things like the clarification and the pre-market engagement to make sure that you are really putting your foot forward.
Great.
Thank you.
That's been really interesting today. So thank you for joining us, Nathalia. And it might go about saying, but at Mills & Reeve, we are very happy to discuss any legal queries you might have about health tech, including on procurement law, specifically bidding for contracts or places on a framework, or even what to do if things do go wrong for you.
Our individual contact details are available on our website at mills-reeve.com.
Thank you for joining this episode of Talking digital health by law firm Mills & Reeve.