Public Health Bid Planning

Client: Large Organisation delivering Wellbeing Services

Healthcare Sector: Public Health Services

Project Category: Bid Planning

Project Detail

HealthBid worked with a new entrant to the public health market to prepare them to bid on a major contract in England. They are a large company with interests across the public sector but had not yet successfully bid on a healthcare contract.

The Client’s Barriers

Lack of Experience

The client was a new entrant to the sector with no previous healthcare contract successes.

Commissioning

The service was being commissioned for an area with three separate ICSs which added a layer of complexity.

Initial Scoping

We had a detailed period of scoping our support to our client, in order to make sure that the help we were giving was directly relevant to what they were trying to achieve. It was clear that five areas would be of use:

A demographic study of the area covered by the bid.
A review of the current state of development of Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) in the area, so these could be woven into the bid.
An analysis of a recent innovation in public health, so that the bid could reflect the latest best practice.
A review of our client’s capabilities against the commissioner’s aims and objectives.
A review of competitors’ capabilities against the same objectives.

Demographics

Understanding the local population is vital to any bid; ultimately all our bid work relates to how people are cared for. Demographic data is available readily but is also from disparate sources and is often complex. Our team of experts set to work reviewing several demographic segments – such as BAME groups, deprived areas, the elderly and people in the criminal justice system. Drawing on multiple sources, they condensed often complex information into a short report

Integrated Care Systems

Our client knew that how they would support the nascent ICSs in the local area would be key to demonstrating to the commissioner that they were there to support the future direction of healthcare. A review of local ICS arrangements was therefore carried out by our team. Our final report was a short precis of the ICS situation, along with a set of recommendations relevant to the public health bid our client was anticipating.

Innovation in Public Health

To comprehend the most recent perspectives in public health, a member of our team, an experienced public health professional and clinician, conducted a thorough review of the existing literature. Additionally, they provided a concise summary of the research conducted by the University of Leeds on enhancing the collaboration between public health and the police force to enhance outcomes for citizens.

Review of Client and Competitor Capabilities

An essential aspect of devising a bid strategy involves recognising internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of competitors. While a SWOT analysis is commonly used for this purpose, we have found that such analyses can often be overly theoretical and may not align with the commissioner’s requirements. Under the guidance of our in-house expert, our team collaborated with our client to create a customized matrix. This matrix delineates the strengths and weaknesses, specifically in relation to the high-level commissioning objectives outlined by the local authority responsible for tendering this contract.

Project Successes

At the end of the Plan phase which we carried out, our client was able to build a service model that drew on good local data, the best national practice, and a deep commercial understanding of where to position themselves against competitors.

In addition, it allowed particular areas of weakness to be mitigated before the bid was published, giving them time to embed, and for evidence to be gathered.