How do I become a supplier?

We work on behalf of our members and other public sector organisations to award framework agreements and support procurement teams in awarding contracts under these frameworks. As these agreements and contracts are for use in the public sector, Public Contract Regulations guide the steps we must take to promote competition and transparency.

This process requires us to advertise planned framework agreements in the ‘Find a Tender Service’ (FTS), the new UK e-notification service where notices for new procurements must now be published, which replaces OJEU / TED for projects commencing after January 2021, and evaluate tender responses using a rigorous, objectives and structured method.

We must ensure that your company is capable of serving all NHS Commercial Solutions’ customers and, for national contracts, across the NHS in England or the wider UK public sector.

To be considered as an approved supplier on a framework agreement, or a single supplier contract. You must:

• Express interest by following the instructions given on the contract notice
• Complete all stages of the procurement process

We award the following agreements and contracts

• Framework agreements – A framework agreement lists organisations that have been successfully assessed to deliver products and services. This assessment is based on both quality and commercial criteria. Most of our framework agreements offer our customers an opportunity to call-off services directly (without a further competition), or hold a further competition with the approved list of suppliers. This complaint route to market offers both suppliers and customers reduced procurement time and cost.
• Single Supplier contract – Where there is no framework agreement available or the service required is unique, we will go out to market for a contract or contracts with a supplier on behalf of a single trust or a number of trusts forming a recognised cohort.

There are a number of ways to find opportunities to tender for government and public sector business:

• Register with Contracts Finder and ‘Find a Tender Service’ (FTS) for alerts relevant to your business area. FTS is the new UK e-notification service where notices for new procurements must now be published, and replaces OJEU / TED.  Contracts Finder shows all public sector tenders with a value of more than £10,000. It is automatically updated every weekday night with new notices published on FTS.
• Register with the NHS Commercial Solutions' BravoSolution e-tendering portal here
• Follow us on social media. We keep our clients and suppliers updated via Twitter and LinkedIn.

We are not able to add suppliers onto the framework agreements mid-term. Suppliers not on the relevant framework agreement will have to wait to take part in the next tender process and be successfully awarded to become an approved NHS Commercial Solutions supplier. Dynamic Purchasing Systems are sometimes used that enable suppliers to be assessed and added to the list of approved suppliers at more frequent intervals.