Social Prescribing and Wellbeing Services Tenders

Social prescribing bids are usually won on two things: reach and delivery grip. Commissioners want confidence that you can accept referrals smoothly, support people to make changes that matter to them, and coordinate with primary care and VCSE partners, while reporting impact clearly and consistently.

At Bidding, we help providers turn social prescribing and wellbeing models into clear, scoreable tender responses that evaluators can follow quickly.

Clients we have worked with:

Get support from healthcare bidding experts

Contact us

What buyers are looking for

Social prescribing sits within personalised care, and is closely linked to the social prescribing link worker model in primary care networks. That shapes what gets scored in most tenders.

That shapes what gets scored in most tenders:

  • Clear referral criteria and triage, including safeguarding and risk screening
  • Simple end-to-end flow from referral to first contact to support plan
  • A practical approach to non-engagement that reduces drop-out

“What matters to you” support that is structured

Social prescribing link workers are expected to take a holistic, person-led approach, so bids score higher when you show how that becomes a repeatable process, not just a principle.

  • How you co-produce a plan, agree goals, and review progress
  • How you support behaviour change and confidence over time
  • How you tailor support for people facing barriers like isolation, low health literacy, or digital exclusion

Partnership delivery with VCSE and community assets

  • How you map, maintain and quality-check community offers
  • How you manage capacity constraints in the community ecosystem
  • Clear roles, escalation routes, and information sharing

Reporting that proves impact and improves delivery

There is now a Social Prescribing Information Standard intended to support recording and maintaining social prescribing support provision collaboratively between patients, link workers and professionals.

Bids score better when they explain:

  • What you record, how often, and how you use it
  • A simple KPI and outcomes pack that matches what the contract asks for
  • How learning and feedback translates into changes in delivery

Where social prescribing bids often lose marks

  • A strong values narrative, but limited detail on caseloads, contact model, and review cadence
  • Partnership language without operational clarity (roles, data flow, escalation)
  • Outcomes listed, but not measured, reported, or improved
  • Equality and access described as intent, with no targeted delivery plan
  • A community directory approach, without quality, safeguarding, and capacity controls

Who commissions social prescribing and wellbeing services?

Routes vary locally, but you will commonly see:

  • Primary care network delivery models that employ and support social prescribing link workers (with national guidance aimed at PCN employers).
  • ICB and place-based commissioning where wellbeing services form part of wider personalised care or health inequalities priorities.
  • Local authority and VCSE partnership models depending on the service scope and population.

How we support you

At Bidding, we support social prescribing and wellbeing bids in a practical, evaluator-focused way:

  • We shape your response around what will be scored (access, partnership delivery, impact, governance)
  • We add capacity quickly through our bid management service or interim bid staff when deadlines are tight
  • We strengthen drafts and fix scoring blockers via our bid review and comment service
  • We help you present an outcomes and reporting approach that is measurable, consistent, and easy to evaluate, including where information standards and shared records are relevant.

We work alongside your team so the bid reads like a delivery model you can run on day one.

FAQs

Do you support tenders focused on link workers, or wider wellbeing and community support models?
Yes. We support link worker-style models and broader wellbeing services, and we make referral pathways, roles and delivery processes clear and scoreable.

How do we show impact when outcomes are varied and personal?
We help you combine person-led goals with a small set of consistent measures, plus a clear recording and review cadence, so progress can be evidenced without forcing a one-size-fits-all outcome.

We deliver with VCSE partners. How do we avoid the bid sounding fragmented?
By setting out responsibilities, governance, QA, escalation, and reporting in a simple operating model that shows how it all holds together.

Can Bidding just review what we have, rather than write from scratch?
Absolutely. We can review and comment, prioritise changes that affect scoring most, and uplift only the sections that need it.

Can you support at short notice?
Yes. We can provide extra bid capacity or a focused review plan when timelines are tight.

Let’s make your social prescribing bid easier to evaluate

If you have a social prescribing or wellbeing tender live, get in touch with Bidding and share the ITT (and your draft, if you have one). We’ll recommend the quickest route to strengthen scoring, whether that is a focused review, targeted rewrites of priority sections, or added bid capacity through to submission.