Sheffield City Council runs a Pseudo-Dynamic Purchasing System (Pseudo-DPS) for adult social care providers supporting people with disabilities and long-term health conditions in the city. It’s commissioned under the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 Light Touch Regime, and it’s how the Council finds providers to deliver care, support and day opportunities…

On Monday 2 June 2026, the Supreme Court handed down judgment in A Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland [2026] UKSC 16, unanimously overruling its own 2014 decision in P v Cheshire West and Chester Council. For more than a decade, the “acid test” set out in Cheshire…

The single biggest source of errors in residential care, supported living, and domiciliary services is not the medication round, not the personal care, not the nursing intervention. It is the shift handover. Medication errors trace back to a missed instruction at handover. Family complaints trace back to a phone call…

The formal training for a CQC, Care Inspectorate, or Care Inspectorate Wales inspection covers the obvious things. The quality statements. The key lines of enquiry. How to brief staff. How to prepare the documentation. How to handle the formal interview. Anyone who has registered as a manager has been through…

There is a moment in most UK care services, repeated four or five times a year, that costs the provider money for no operational benefit. A new care worker starts. The administrator pulls up the DBS portal, processes a new Enhanced DBS check with barred list, pays the £42 fee…

On Wednesday 27 May 2026, the British Medical Association announced that resident doctors in England will strike from 7am on 15 June to 7am on 19 June. It will be the sixteenth round of industrial action by resident doctors since the dispute began in March 2023. Three rounds of five-day…

The London Borough of Hackney has opened a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for emergency accommodation, and it’s open to local hotels, B&Bs and guest houses. The Council wants to stop spot purchasing rooms at standard commercial rates. Instead, it’s looking for accommodation providers to come on board through a contract,…

Subcontracting in UK health and social care contracts is one of those topics that sits quietly in the contract pack until something goes wrong. Most providers signing prime contracts give the subcontracting clauses a careful first read, mark them as standard, and move on. The subcontracting language reads the same…