Mastering Government Healthcare Tenders: The Ultimate Guide to Winning Bids in 2025

Government healthcare tenders have changed dramatically in the last two years. The approaches that worked in 2022 and 2023 are failing now. The providers who are still using old methods are losing out to those who understand what commissioners actually want in 2025.

The biggest change is that Integrated Care Systems now control most healthcare commissioning. Here’s what this means:

• ICBs think system-wide, not service-specific: They focus on population health outcomes across entire areas rather than commissioning individual services separately. This basic shift means they judge every proposal against how it helps reduce health inequalities, improve prevention, and keep people out of hospital across their entire population.
• Old boundaries are disappearing: Commissioners want providers who can work easily across primary care, secondary care, mental health, and social care boundaries. Your old approach of bidding for single services doesn’t work anymore because ICBs want joined-up solutions that tackle complex, multi-part health challenges.
• Partnership is the new currency: The providers winning big contracts are those who position themselves as system partners, not just service providers. This means showing how you’ll work with existing providers, share data and resources, and help achieve shared goals rather than competing for individual contracts.

What Commissioners Are Actually Looking For Now

Having reviewed winning and losing bids from the last 12 months, commissioners are scoring highest on five specific areas:

• Digital ability is now essential: Every healthcare tender asks about digital systems, data sharing, remote monitoring, and AI integration. If you can’t show strong digital abilities with evidence of systems working together, real-time data sharing, and innovative technology use, you won’t even make the shortlist for major contracts.
• Population health thinking is the new standard: Commissioners want to see that you understand their local population’s specific health needs and challenges. Generic service descriptions don’t work anymore – you need to show detailed knowledge of local demographics, health inequalities, and how your service directly tackles the population health priorities outlined in their Integrated Care Strategy.
• Partnership working is weighted heavily in scoring: Show concrete evidence of successful work with other healthcare providers, local authorities, voluntary sector organisations, and community groups. Commissioners are buying into systems, not individual services, so your track record of genuine partnership working and joined-up service delivery is crucial for scoring well.
• Sustainability and net zero commitments are mandatory: This isn’t just about having an environmental policy on your website. You need to show real action on carbon reduction, sustainable service delivery methods, local supply chain commitments, and how your service actively helps the commissioner’s own net zero targets and environmental responsibilities.
• Innovation and improvement abilities separate winners from losers: Commissioners want providers who will help them transform services, not just maintain what they’ve always done. Show your track record of service innovation, quality improvement projects, and how you’ll bring fresh thinking and continuous improvement to their local health system.

The Winning Formula for 2025

After analysing hundreds of successful bids this year, the winning formula is clear:

• Start with the local Integrated Care Strategy: Every ICS publishes their five-year strategy online – this should be the foundation of every bid response. Read it thoroughly, understand their specific priorities and challenges, and show exactly how your service helps achieve their goals rather than just delivering generic healthcare activities.
• Lead with outcomes, not activities: Don’t tell commissioners how many appointments you’ll provide – tell them how many people you’ll help avoid hospital admissions. Transform your service descriptions into outcome-focused proposals that show measurable improvements in population health, patient experience, and system efficiency.
• Show genuine system thinking: Show how your service connects with and enhances other local providers rather than operating alone. Reference existing partnerships, explain your data sharing protocols, and detail how you’ll contribute to integrated care pathways that deliver seamless patient journeys across multiple providers.
• Prove your digital maturity with evidence: Include screenshots of your systems, show how they work with NHS systems, and give real examples of how you use data to improve outcomes. If you’re not digitally mature, either invest rapidly in digital abilities or partner with organisations that can provide the digital infrastructure commissioners now expect as standard.

Make sustainability central, not peripheral: Show your carbon reduction plans, sustainable travel policies, and local supply chain commitments as core elements of your service delivery model. This isn’t a compliance tick-box anymore – it’s a competitive advantage that shows your alignment with NHS environmental priorities and long-term thinking.

Avoiding the Mistakes That Kill Bids in 2025

The biggest mistakes that are killing bids this year:

• Writing bids like it’s still 2020: Focusing on your organisation’s abilities rather than the commissioner’s system needs shows you haven’t understood the basic shift. Commissioners don’t want more fragmented services – they want to see how you’ll integrate with existing provision and strengthen the overall system.
• Using generic, one-size-fits-all responses: Every healthcare community has different challenges, demographics, and priorities that require tailored solutions. Generic proposals that could apply to any location score poorly because they show a lack of local understanding and commitment to addressing specific population needs.
• Treating digital requirements as afterthoughts: If the tender mentions digital integration, data sharing, or remote monitoring, these aren’t nice-to-have extras – they’re core requirements. Address them thoroughly with specific examples and evidence, or accept that you’ll lose to digitally mature competitors.
• Making weak partnership claims without evidence: Saying you’ll “work collaboratively” or “engage with stakeholders” doesn’t count as partnership working. Name specific organisations you already work with, show evidence of successful joint projects, and show how you’ll contribute meaningfully to established local networks and partnerships.
• Bidding for everything instead of playing to strengths: The new commissioning landscape rewards specialists who can show deep expertise in specific population groups or service areas. Be selective, focus on opportunities where you can show genuine expertise and competitive advantage, and build a reputation for excellence in your chosen areas.

The Opportunities That Most Providers Are Missing

While many providers struggle with the new landscape, smart ones are finding huge opportunities:

• Prevention and early intervention contracts are growing rapidly: ICBs are investing heavily in keeping people healthy rather than treating illness after it develops. If you can show prevention abilities with measurable outcomes in areas like diabetes prevention, mental health early intervention, or childhood obesity, there’s significant funding available.
• Digital-first services are being prioritised for investment: Remote monitoring, virtual consultations, AI-powered diagnostics, and digital treatments are all growth areas with dedicated funding streams. The providers investing in these abilities are winning multiple contracts and positioning themselves for long-term success in an increasingly digital NHS.
• Health inequalities work attracts ring-fenced investment: Commissioners have specific budgets for addressing inequalities in their populations, particularly for underserved communities. If you can show proven impact with disadvantaged communities, ethnic minorities, or deprived areas, there’s dedicated money available that many providers aren’t accessing.
• Workforce development is a universal priority: Every commissioner is struggling with recruitment and retention across healthcare roles. If you can offer innovative workforce solutions like apprenticeship programmes, international recruitment support, or staff wellbeing initiatives, you’ll find receptive commissioners with dedicated budgets.

Social prescribing and community connections are expanding rapidly: The NHS is finally investing properly in non-medical interventions that connect health services with community assets. Providers who can bridge healthcare and community support are highly valued and can access growing funding streams for holistic care approaches.

Building Your 2025 Bidding Strategy

Successful healthcare providers are taking a completely different approach to bidding:

• Build relationships with ICB leaders before tenders are published: Attend stakeholder events, contribute to strategy discussions, and position yourself as a system partner rather than just another bidder. Early relationship building helps you understand priorities, influence tender specifications, and show your commitment to the local health system.
• Invest in digital abilities as a priority: Don’t wait for immediate tender requirements – digital maturity is now a basic entry requirement for serious contracts. Invest in systems that work together, data analytics abilities, and digital service delivery methods that will set you apart from less prepared competitors.
• Develop genuine partnerships with formal agreements: Move beyond talking about collaboration to creating actual partnership agreements, joint ventures, and formal alliances. Having established partnerships with complementary providers gives you credibility and enables you to bid for larger, more complex contracts that require multi-organisational delivery.
• Gather and use population health data strategically: Understand your local communities’ health needs better than your competitors by collecting and analysing population health data. Use this intelligence to inform service development, identify opportunities, and show deep local knowledge in your bid responses.
• Treat sustainability as a business strategy, not compliance: Make real investments in net zero initiatives, sustainable service delivery, and environmental responsibility that you can showcase as competitive advantages. Commissioners increasingly view environmental responsibility as an indicator of forward-thinking, responsible organisational leadership.

What Success Looks Like in 2025

The healthcare providers who are winning consistently share these characteristics:

• They think like system partners, not service providers: Understanding that commissioners are buying solutions to population health challenges, not just individual services. This means framing every proposal in terms of system-wide benefits, collaborative outcomes, and contribution to collective health goals rather than standalone service delivery.
• They lead with digital innovation and ability: Their proposals showcase how technology enables better outcomes, improves efficiency, and enhances patient experience. Digital ability isn’t presented as a technical add-on but as the foundation that enables everything else they promise to deliver.
• They’re locally rooted but strategically connected: They understand their communities deeply through data, relationships, and proven track record, but can also connect local services to wider health and care systems. This combination of local knowledge and wider connectivity is highly valued by commissioners.
• They measure outcomes that matter to commissioners: They track population health improvements, system efficiency gains, and patient experience metrics that align with ICB priorities rather than just internal operational metrics. They can prove their impact on the health outcomes that commissioners are held accountable for achieving.

They show future-focused transformation: They show commissioners how they’ll help transform healthcare delivery through innovation, digital adoption, and new models of care rather than just maintaining current service provision. They position themselves as change agents who will help commissioners achieve their transformation goals.