Case Study

VOW CARE SERVICES LTD NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Domiciliary Care AQP

Tender Overview

In March 2026, Vow Care Services Ltd was awarded a contract on the NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Domiciliary Care Any Qualified Provider (AQP) procurement. We wrote and submitted the application on their behalf.

The AQP is run by NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board and sits under the Provider Selection Regime — the set of rules that governs how NHS bodies buy health and care services in England. Rather than running a competition where one provider wins and others lose, an AQP works by approving every provider that meets the required standard. Once approved, providers are made available for commissioners and service users to choose from based on their needs and location.

This means the application itself determines everything. There is no ranking, no score that puts one provider ahead of another. Either the application meets the standard and the provider is approved, or it does not and they are turned away. That is the environment we were working in when we supported Vow Care Services through this process.

Their contract was confirmed on 9 March 2026. They began delivering services on 1 April 2026.

The Brief


Client	Vow Care Services Ltd
Commissioner	NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex Integrated Care Board
Tender	NHS HWE Domiciliary Care Any Qualified Provider (AQP) 2025 Procurement
Procurement Route	Any Qualified Provider under the Provider Selection Regime
Contract Start	1 April 2026
Result	Successful — Contract Awarded 9 March 2026

Vow Care Services delivers personal care and support to adults living in their own homes. They came to us because they wanted to work with NHS commissioners in Hertfordshire and West Essex and needed their application to be written to the standard that NHS procurement requires.

The AQP application covered a wide range of areas. Vow Care had to show they were financially sound, properly insured, registered with the CQC, and operating with the right safeguarding and data protection arrangements in place. They also had to set out their workforce model and explain how they would deliver domiciliary care within the HWE region. Every section had to meet the required standard. There was no room to be strong in one area and weak in another — the AQP does not work that way.

Key Challenges

Challenge	Detail
The Provider Selection Regime was unfamiliar territory	The PSR is still relatively new, and many care providers have not yet had to navigate it. This AQP followed the competitive process route under the PSR, which comes with specific rules around how applications are assessed, how decisions are communicated, and how the standstill period works before a contract can be issued. Getting this right was not just about the written responses — it was about understanding the process well enough to move through it cleanly and without errors that could delay or derail the award.
NHS commissioners expect a different level of evidence	The language and evidence standards that NHS commissioners look for are not the same as those used in local authority tenders or private care arrangements. Vow Care had solid care delivery experience, but translating that into responses written for an NHS procurement audience — using the right terminology, referencing the right frameworks, and presenting evidence in the way that NHS evaluators expect — required a different approach to how their work was described and documented.
Every document had to be right first time	The CarePulse eProcurement platform used for this AQP required supporting documents to be uploaded correctly and completely alongside the written responses. Insurance certificates, CQC registration, safeguarding policies, financial information — all of it had to be current, correctly named, and submitted without gaps. A missing or outdated document would have been grounds for rejection, regardless of how well the written responses were drafted.

Our Approach

We took Vow Care Services through the full application from start to finish. That meant reviewing their existing documents and policies, identifying what was ready and what needed work, drafting all the written responses, and managing the submission through CarePulse.

Approach	Detail
We started with a document review	Before writing anything, we went through what Vow Care already had — their policies, their CQC history, their insurance and financial records, their staffing arrangements. This told us what was in good shape, what needed updating, and what was missing entirely. It meant we could plan the application properly rather than discovering gaps at the last minute.
We wrote responses built around their actual delivery	Every section of the application was written around what Vow Care genuinely does and how they genuinely work. We did not use generic language or lift content from templates. The quality and governance responses reflected their real oversight structures. The workforce responses described how they actually recruit, train, and supervise their staff. The service delivery responses set out how they would operate in the HWE region specifically. Evaluators reading the application would have seen a provider that knew exactly what they were doing — because the responses were grounded in real practice.
We checked everything before it went in	Once the application was drafted, we checked every response against the published criteria and every supporting document against the submission requirements. Nothing was uploaded until we were confident it was correct and complete. On an AQP where a single gap can end the process, that final check is not optional.

Results

On 9 March 2026, NHS Hertfordshire and West Essex confirmed that Vow Care Services’ application had been successful. After the eight-working-day standstill period required under the Provider Selection Regime, the contract was issued. Vow Care Services began delivering NHS-commissioned domiciliary care on 1 April 2026.

Application	Result
NHS HWE Domiciliary Care AQP 2025 Procurement	✅ SUCCESSFUL

What This Means for Vow Care Services

Vow Care Services is now an approved NHS provider in Hertfordshire and West Essex. The HWE ICB covers a large part of the East of England, serving well over a million people. As an approved AQP provider, Vow Care will receive referrals from commissioners and be available for service users to choose when their care is funded through NHS pathways.

Beyond the referrals themselves, this appointment confirms that Vow Care’s governance, staffing, and delivery model have been formally assessed and approved by an NHS commissioner. That carries real weight. When commissioners look at providers — now and in future procurements — having NHS approval on record is a strong signal that an organisation is operating to a serious standard.

Vow Care Services is now building their NHS delivery record from the ground up. Every referral they take, every service user they support well, and every commissioner relationship they develop in Hertfordshire and West Essex adds to that record. It is the kind of foundation that opens doors to further NHS contracts as they come up.

Working with AssuredBID

If you run a care business and want to win NHS or local authority contracts, the quality of your written application is what gets you through the door. Commissioners cannot visit your service before they approve you. They cannot speak to your staff or watch your team work. All they have is your application — and it either meets the standard or it does not.

At AssuredBID, we write bids and tender responses for health and social care providers across England. We know what NHS and local authority commissioners are looking for, how their procurement processes work, and how to present a care provider’s experience and delivery model in a way that passes evaluation.

We have helped providers win places on NHS frameworks, local authority DPS arrangements, and AQP contracts across a wide range of care settings — domiciliary care, supported living, residential care, mental health services, and more.

If you have a tender coming up, or you want to get on a framework that is currently open, get in touch with the AssuredBID team today. We will tell you whether the opportunity is right for you and what it would take to put in a strong application.

Visit www.assuredbid.co.uk or call us to speak to a bid writer directly.

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