Contract and Tender Process

The Procurement Act 2023 became effective from 24 February 2025.

Suppliers should ensure they take advantage of the training and education opportunities offered by the government and that they are signed up to the relevant email alerts.

• The Procurement Act 2023: A short guide for suppliers – guidance published by the Government Commercial Function on the gov.uk website.
• The Procurement Act 2023: Guidance document – documents covering all aspects of the Procurement Act 2023 and are intended to provide technical guidance and help with interpretation and understanding.
• A series of Knowledge Drops designed to provide an overview of the Procurement Act 2023 key changes to the previous regulations:
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3

The Act’s aims are:

• Reporting transparency – Embeds transparency throughout the commercial lifecycle. Additional pipeline and notice publication requirement throughout the process including in Contract Management.
• Financial savings – Encourage innovative solutions, potential to realise better value for money and greater savings through transparent contract and performance management.
• Community investment – improving wider societal benefits by moving from Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) to Most Advantageous Tender (MAT), and, in central government, a minimum 10% social benefit mandated.
• Flexibility – Enable contracting authorities to tailor their approach to achieve better outcomes and value for money. Greater flexibility to modify route or contract.
• Supplier diversity – Help new entrants (especially SMEs) to compete for public contracts. Single digital tool for suppliers to register and reuse their details.
• Governance – Central digital platform to publish opportunities, enable greater scrutiny and monitor supplier performance.

Supplier benefits

• Register as suppliers once on a central digital platform – details can then be used for multiple bids.
• All public sector contracting authorities will be required to post their contracts on one website, making it easier for suppliers to see opportunities.
• Frameworks will be more flexible, so prospective suppliers are not shut out for long periods of time.
• There will be prompt payment for more businesses in public sector supply chains.
• The most significant areas of change are:
  • Transparency: a real expansion in the number of notices that an authority will need to publish about the procurement and lifetime of the contract.
  • Procurement processes: new flexibilities, subject to limits, to design bespoke procurement processes.
  • Contract performance: a new requirement for all authorities to set and publicly report on KPIs for larger contracts valued at over £5 million.
  • Supplier debarment list: the possibility of supplier debarment where mandatory or discretionary exclusion criteria are triggered.
  • New language: the Act uses new language to describe familiar concepts (for example, “selection criteria” will be known as “conditions of participation” under the Act).

In order for a product to be listed in the NHS Supply Chain Catalogue, it must be procured through a compliant tender and, if successful, will be listed on a Framework Agreement under the respective Category teams.

NHS Supply Chain follows a compliant procurement process when purchasing goods for the NHS in accordance with Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (PCR2015). This involves:

• Following procedure where spend is above the Public Contracts Regulations threshold.
• Advertising all tender opportunities on Contracts Finder.
• Advertising all tender opportunities in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU), which can be viewed on the Tenders Electronic Daily (TED) website.

NHS Supply Chain is committed to supplying the NHS with quality-assured, safe, and compliant products.

To uphold these standards for patient safety, we have made the decision to only accept United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) or an equivalent internationally recognised and accredited ISO certification. 

UKAS is the sole national accreditation body recognised by the British government to assess the competence of organisations that provide certification, testing, inspection and calibration services.

This change applies to all suppliers and is now a requirement for participation in relevant framework agreements, to ensure that all certifications:

• Meet a globally-recognised standard of quality assessment.
• Have been issued following a rigorous, independently audited process.
• Are credible and verifiable.

What do suppliers need to do?

• Suppliers must provide a valid and in date BS EN ISO 9001: 2015 or BS EN ISO 13485:2016 accredited by UKAS, or one of the alternative Certification Bodies listed here – https://iaf.nu/en/accreditation-bodies/
• If you are in the process of obtaining certification, you must provide a letter from the Certification Body confirming that the process has started and the estimated outcome (after audit) is within two weeks of the issuing of the Assessment Summary as detailed in the Invitation To Tender (ITT) timetable.
• Committing to obtain certification is not sufficient and failure to provide evidence will result in your bid submission being rejected and removed from the award.
• Your certification must include, but not be limited to, sales, manufacturing, storage and distribution.
• If you are not covering all activities, for example you are a distributor or using a key contractor, then you must provide ISO certification of all companies involved in the supply chain with your bid submission.

Suppliers who do not yet meet this requirement are encouraged to review their certification arrangements and, where necessary, engage with a recognised UKAS (info@ukas.com 01784 429 000) or IAF accredited body to ensure eligibility for future opportunities.

Conformity Assessment:

In addition to the UKAS Accreditation, all medical devices including Invitro Diagnostics devices, with the exception of Class I and Class A, must undergo a Conformity Assessment and, regardless of classification, must have a Declaration of Conformity (DoC) and be registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to be lawfully placed on the UK market.

The main routes to do this are:

• UKCA marking, which came into existence when the UK left the European Union. It is placed on medical devices to show conformity to the Medical Device Regulation (UK MDR 2002 as amended).
  Using the UKCA marking – GOV.UK
• CE marking through EU Medical Device Regulation 2017/745 is currently still recognised in Great Britain subject to meeting timelines and requirements mandated by the MHRA and European Union.
  CE marking – GOV.UK
• Medical Devices Directive 93/42/EEC extension in accordance with the terms of the Article 120 extension.
  Registration of reusable or upclassified Class I devices and/or expiring CE certificates – GOV.UK

Suppliers need to access – the Jaggaer eProcurement portal – if they are going to be tendering for business with NHS Supply Chain.

The web-based system brings together a suite of collaborative tools that enable NHS Supply Chain and suppliers suppliers to conduct the strategic activities of the procurement lifecycle.

It provides a simple, secure and efficient means for managing tendering activities, reducing the time and effort required for both buyers and suppliers.

Using the Jaggaer eProcurement portal: how to videos