If you supply clinical, non-clinical, or managed workforce services into the NHS, RM6397 is the framework to watch. It is being developed by Crown Commercial Service (CCS) and delivered through the NHS Workforce Alliance to provide a compliant route for temporary, fixed-term and permanent recruitment across clinical and non-clinical roles.
This guide focuses on what RM6397 is likely to cover, how NHS buyers typically use workforce frameworks, and what you can do now to strengthen your position before the tender lands.
RM6397 is the upcoming CCS framework agreement for clinical and non-clinical temporary and permanent staffing. The intention is to give NHS and wider public sector organisations a consistent, compliant way to source workforce quickly, while maintaining clear controls around governance, quality and spend.
In practice, suppliers who benefit from frameworks like this tend to fall into three groups:
Many NHS organisations will use a framework to reduce procurement time and risk, then compete work under that agreement rather than running everything from scratch. That’s why a framework place can matter as much as a single big contract, and it’s one reason suppliers often prioritise a repeatable approach to framework applications rather than treating each submission as a one-off.
Based on published information, RM6397 is expected to support the procurement of:
For suppliers, the real challenge is clarity. If you operate across multiple staff groups, the bid needs to read like one coherent delivery model, not a set of separate offerings stitched together. Buyers will also cross-check your answers for consistency, especially where compliance, mobilisation and reporting overlap.
Understanding how the NHS uses frameworks is key to securing your place. NHS organisations use workforce frameworks in slightly different ways depending on urgency, internal capability, and how mature their workforce controls are. The same buyer may use different call-off approaches for different staff groups, so it helps to understand the patterns.
For known, repeat requirements, speed tends to lead. Buyers often want a fast, compliant route to secure cover and maintain continuity. That may mean a lighter competition, but it still places weight on delivery assurance, particularly around mobilisation and compliance.
Where risk is higher, buyers typically compare suppliers on how well they can control quality at pace. This includes scenarios such as critical clinical roles, high volumes, multiple sites, or complex rotas. Here, evaluators often look for clear evidence on:
Managed service routes, where they exist, are often chosen when buyers want tighter oversight of spend, performance and supply chain behaviour. If RM6397 includes a managed service lot, you’ll usually need to show how you standardise processes, manage suppliers beneath you, and maintain visibility through reporting and governance.
If you’re building your pipeline around NHS opportunities, it also helps to understand how tenders surface across portals and routes, which we cover within our guide to NHS procurement routes and platforms.
Workforce tenders can look different from one buyer to the next, but the scoring themes are usually familiar. Strong responses translate the day-to-day running of your service into evidence an evaluator can score, rather than relying on broad claims.
Buyers need confidence that your recruitment is safe, consistent and traceable. “We’re compliant” isn’t enough on its own, because evaluators need to see the process, ownership and controls that prevent issues rather than just react to them. The strongest answers usually show:
Most NHS buyers are trying to balance continuity with cost, while keeping services safe. That puts pressure on fill rates, candidate quality and responsiveness. Bids tend to score well when they explain how you build and maintain candidate pools, respond to demand spikes, and reduce cancellations and late drop-outs.
If you can make your approach tangible without overloading the reader, a short example often works better than a long case study. One or two lines on outcomes, volumes, or time-to-fill improvements can make the delivery model feel credible.
Mobilisation is where many bids lose marks, because suppliers describe what they do but not how they implement it. Buyers often feel the greatest risk in the first 30 to 90 days, particularly where another supplier is incumbent.
A mobilisation section reads strongly when it makes the early phase feel planned and controlled, for example:
Governance should feel like something that will happen in real meetings with real stakeholders, not an idealised diagram. Buyers tend to look for a structure that matches the complexity of the service and makes it obvious how problems are handled. Where possible, show:
Workforce procurement sits under constant scrutiny, so pricing clarity matters. Evaluators often respond well to answers that show consistency and transparency, including how you prevent hidden extras, maintain rate discipline, and support the buyer’s governance requirements without undermining safe staffing.
To stay up to date with how the NHS views tenders, be sure to read our guide to NHS commissioning and ICB changes.
You don’t need the final ITT to get RM6397-ready. The aim is to tighten the parts of your service that create delivery risk and bring your evidence into a “bid-friendly” format, so you can tailor quickly when documents arrive.
Four areas usually deliver the biggest payoff.
First, align your service story. If you deliver across multiple staff groups, make it clear what’s standardised, what’s tailored, and where accountability sits across clinical and non-clinical delivery.
Second, build a compact evidence library. A small set of assets that match buyer priorities is typically more useful than a large archive. For example:
Third, tighten how you explain supply chain control (if you use one). Buyers want to know standards will be applied consistently. That means being clear about due diligence, monitoring, performance management and what happens when a second-tier supplier falls short.
Fourth, keep social value and workforce practices specific. Broad statements rarely add marks unless you can tie them to outcomes. Practical examples linked to local recruitment pipelines, retention interventions, training support, or EDI outcomes tend to land best.
Even strong suppliers sometimes lose marks for reasons that are easy to fix, especially when the bid is pulled together quickly. The most common issue is writing as though the evaluator already understands your operation. They don’t, and they need a clear route from claim to evidence.
Mobilisation is another recurring weakness. Suppliers often describe business-as-usual delivery well, but give thin coverage to the first 30–90 days when risk is highest. A phased plan, named owners and stabilisation controls can lift scores quickly.
Generic compliance language is also a frequent problem. “Full compliance” isn’t evidence: buyers want to understand the checks, how they are tracked, what triggers re-checks, and what happens when something fails.
Finally, where bids cover both clinical and non-clinical delivery, inconsistencies creep in between recruitment, compliance and reporting sections. If those answers don’t align, marks can drop even if each section sounds reasonable in isolation.
If RM6397 is central to your NHS growth plan, it helps to tackle it in stages.
Start by choosing where you can genuinely compete. Some suppliers perform better by focusing on fewer service lines with stronger evidence rather than chasing every route.
Then map your evidence to likely scoring themes and remove anything that doesn’t prove capability, controls or outcomes. If it doesn’t help an evaluator score you, it usually becomes noise.
Finally, make sure you can execute quickly when the tender arrives: responsibilities, review cycles and sign-off routes. If you want a structured approach to building that pipeline, our step-by-step guide to building a public sector sales pipeline sets out a practical way to organise it around upcoming frameworks.
RM6397 is set to be a major route for NHS workforce supply across clinical and non-clinical roles. The best preparation you can do now is to clarify your service model, bring your evidence into a scoreable format, and tighten the controls that protect delivery quality under pressure.
If you’d like support positioning your RM6397 submission or turning operational strengths into higher-scoring tender responses, our healthcare tenders work covers NHS procurement requirements across staffing, services and related frameworks.
Bidding Ltd © 2026
