Choices Healthcare - Succeeding In Southend's Multi-Lot Children's Framework

Case Study

Choices Healthcare – Succeeding in Southend’s Multi-Lot Children’s Framework

Tender Overview

In July 2025, we supported Choices Healthcare Limited in securing positions on Southend-on-Sea City Council’s Children’s Residential and Accommodation Framework Lot 2 for those 18+ only. This three-year framework (01 May 2025 – 30 April 2028 with 2-year extension option) used an 80% quality, 20% price evaluation methodology.

Our client wanted to establish themselves within Essex children’s residential care market, specifically targeting supported accommodation services for young people aged 18+. While Choices Healthcare had healthcare experience, this represented their entry into local authority-commissioned residential care for care leavers and young adults.

Main Challenges

Despite Choices Healthcare’s broader experience, local authority children’s residential services presented specific regulatory and operational challenges:

Complete bidding inexperience: Choices Healthcare had absolutely no prior knowledge of bidding processes, evaluation methodologies, or how to structure competitive responses. They had never written a tender response before and were overwhelmed by the complexity of the 80% quality, 20% price evaluation framework and multiple technical questions.

Quality score achievement: Choices Healthcare achieved 48% quality scores across all lots – consistent but indicating areas for improvement compared to higher-scoring competitors in the market.

Local specificity requirements: Evaluation feedback consistently noted the need for greater local focus, requiring demonstration of understanding Southend’s specific demographics, partnerships, and service integration approaches.

Legislative currency requirements: The detailed feedback highlighted how using outdated legislation (such as referencing Data Protection Act 1998 instead of 2018) significantly impacted quality scoring, requiring meticulous attention to current regulatory frameworks.

Adult vs. children’s service context: Evaluation noted that examples focused on adults rather than children, requiring better alignment between case studies and the specific 18+ supported accommodation service context.

Our Intervention

When Choices Healthcare approached us, they were completely lost – having never written a tender response in their lives, they needed our bid writing experts to take complete control of the process from start to finish.

Expert-led framework navigation: Our experienced bid writing consultants immediately recognized that Choices Healthcare needed comprehensive guidance through every aspect of the 80% quality, 20% price evaluation methodology. Our experts took responsibility for understanding the framework structure, evaluation criteria, and technical requirements, translating complex procurement language into actionable guidance.

Multi-lot technical response development: With Choices Healthcare having no bidding knowledge, our bid writing specialists crafted all responses for Lot 2 D, E & F from scratch, ensuring consistency across the three related service areas while demonstrating understanding of 18+ supported accommodation requirements that the client couldn’t articulate themselves.

Quality-weighted response optimization: Our consultants understood that with 80% quality weighting, technical content quality was critical. They took full responsibility for developing comprehensive responses covering safeguarding, data protection, social value, crisis intervention, monitoring, engagement, transition support, and individualized planning – areas where Choices Healthcare had experience but no idea how to present competitively.

End-to-end compliance management: Our experts handled all aspects of the mandatory pre-contract documentation preparation, guiding Choices Healthcare through developing the five required documents: insurance certificates, health & safety policy, business continuity plan, safeguarding policy, and data protection policy – none of which they knew were required until our consultants explained the process.

Local authority evaluation coaching: Understanding Southend’s specific requirements, our bid writing experts researched local priorities and helped position responses to demonstrate understanding that Choices Healthcare simply didn’t possess initially.

How We Worked

We employed a structured approach that addressed Southend’s specific evaluation priorities while building on Choices Healthcare’s existing capabilities:

Legislative compliance verification: We conducted comprehensive reviews of all policy references and legislative citations, ensuring everything reflected current requirements including Data Protection Act 2018, current safeguarding guidance, and relevant children’s legislation.

Local context integration: Understanding Southend’s emphasis on local knowledge, we helped research and incorporate specific references to local services, demographics, and partnership opportunities that would enhance service delivery effectiveness.

Quality response enhancement: Working from the evaluation feedback patterns, we helped develop responses that demonstrated practical implementation knowledge rather than policy awareness alone, with specific examples relevant to 18+ supported accommodation.

Price-quality balance optimization: With the 20%/80% weighting, we ensured competitive pricing across the three lots while maintaining focus on quality response development.

Results

On 16th July 2025, Choices Healthcare received confirmation of their successful appointment to Lot 2 D, E & F of the Children’s Residential and Accommodation Framework, following completion of the mandatory standstill period.

Their quality scores across all three lots, combined with competitive pricing, successfully securing framework positions for 18+ supported accommodation services.

Outcome

This framework success establishes Choices Healthcare’s foundation in Essex children’s residential care:

Essex market entry: Framework membership provides credible entry into local authority children’s services with guaranteed access to referral opportunities over the three-year term plus potential two-year extension.

Service expansion platform: The residential care expertise and local authority relationships developed create opportunities for similar frameworks across other Essex councils and neighboring authorities.

Quality improvement roadmap: The detailed evaluation feedback provides clear guidance for enhancing future responses, particularly in areas like local specificity, current legislation, and service-specific case studies.

We continue supporting Choices Healthcare with framework management and are helping them apply lessons learned from the evaluation feedback to upcoming opportunities with other local authorities.

Category: Healthcare Tender
Client: Private
Date: July 2025
Website:

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