The latest UK and Global Healthcare Market report from Health Contracts International (HCI) is now available, providing suppliers with an insight into the trends and opportunities expected to be seen in 2022 and beyond, both in the UK healthcare sector and overseas. Here is a quick breakdown of the main points covered in more depth in the report:

• The current UK health market

The recent Government spending review provided a few clues regarding the areas in UK healthcare that are likely to see increased public investment in light of the COVID pandemic, and with it the opportunities that could be on offer for suppliers.

• Social Care

The UK Government has announced significant reforms to social care in England, which will not only see changes regarding how much patients pay for care but will also change the way adult social care is managed and promote greater patient choice, potentially providing more opportunities for suppliers.

• Early engagement with buyers

Recent surveys conducted by Cadence Marketing on behalf of HCI show that early engagement with buyers is key for suppliers if they are to improve their chances of winning contracts and will be crucial to helping firms stand out from the inevitable competition.

• Distribution of global healthcare spending

Overall global healthcare spending is on the rise according to the most recent WHO figures, but the difference in spending between the richest and poorest countries remains vast. Domestic public spending ‒ which is where most opportunities will lie for suppliers ‒ accounts for 59% of all global healthcare spending.

• Benefits of accessing global contracts

As healthcare is a universal and ever-present need, there will always be opportunities for suppliers. Accessing global contracts can lead to increased profits, business expansion and the safeguarding of jobs in the UK, but there will be challenges to overcome when working overseas.

• Organisations that can help with global contracts

Given the complexities involved in supplying overseas, those looking to supply abroad for the first time are likely to need support to help them negotiate the process. The Department for International Trade, Exporting is Great and Open to Export are among the organisations that can help.

• Practices, rules, and things to look out for

Procurement is an area where countries and regions behave in very different ways, making it important for suppliers to familiarise themselves with the procurement rules in the country or of the organisation so that they do not ruin their chances of winning a tender through a procedural error.

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Winning public sector contracts in the healthcare sector can be extremely lucrative for suppliers, but there will be plenty of competition to stay ahead of, and some potentially complex and time-consuming processes to run through to secure health contracts. With this in mind, here are some tips to help you rise above your competitors and win those more health contracts:

Early Engagement with Buyers

You don’t have to wait for a contract notice to be published to make yourself known to buyers. Whether it’s through marketing activities, networking or attendance at trade shows such as P4H, you can develop and build relationships with healthcare sector buyers before they start the tendering process. Doing so could lead to advance notice of contract opportunities and the possibility of influencing buyers before they develop a contract specification, as well as helping you identify which opportunities are worth bidding for and improving the quality of your response by enabling you to tailor it to the organisation’s needs and concerns.

Read the tender documentation carefully

This should of course be obvious, but countless contract bids fail when suppliers have belatedly realised they do not meet all the requirements for the job. After you have seen the initial published contract notice, you generally request more detailed documentation which is likely to include the specification, pricing schedule, and instructions about how the tender is to be completed, and it is up to you to make sure all the information you provide is correct and relevant to the job.

The contract notice will also detail insurance requirements, any requirements of minimum turnover and any memberships of trade or professional registers required. You should also read the evaluation methodology to understand how the tender will be scored.  This will normally be split between pricing and quality but these days is likely also to include social value and environmental considerations. Simply offering a cheaper quote than others will not be enough, as buyers will look for the most economically advantageous tender, meaning that quality and life-cycle costing will be considered alongside price.

Improve your green credentials

Every sector is increasingly looking to improve their sustainability and lower their carbon footprint, and healthcare is no exception. Health Secretary Sajid Javid recently stated that from 2030 the NHS will no longer purchase from suppliers that are not aligned with its net zero ambitions. NHS England has also stated that all NHS suppliers will need to publish a carbon reduction plan. In this context, improving your environmental credentials to align with these goals will make your business much more attractive to buyers.

Ensure your reputation is as clean as possible

For any number of reasons, the NHS and the healthcare sector in general are not going to buy from suppliers who have earned a poor reputation, be that through modern slavery, breaches of environmental issues or health and safety standards, bribery and many other issues ‒ and you have to prove this for your supply chain as well as your own business. Ensuring your business and supply chains meet all relevant standards and regulations will mean you won’t be booted out of the tendering process early on.

At Health Contracts International (HCI) our intelligence platform provides users with live healthcare tenders, actionable insights on emerging opportunities, buyer/supplier/industry award analysis and specialist industry news, enabling users to learn of contract notices as soon as they are published and see the requirements of each bid. Get started by downloading our latest report focusing on the new opportunities in 2022 and beyond in the UK and global healthcare marketplace.

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The NHS accounts for around 80% of all healthcare spending in the UK and spends around £27 billion every year on goods and services, and with recent Government announcements of increased investment in the NHS in the years to come, there is no sign that the NHS will remain anything other than the key market for companies looking to supply to the health sector for the foreseeable future. 

The recent announcements from the UK Government’s latest spending review also provide a few clues as to where opportunities are likely to lie in the sector for suppliers in the near future. For instance, £2.3 billion will be invested over the next three years to transform diagnostic services, with at least 100 community diagnostic centres set to open across England. 

Also announced was a £2.1 billion investment to support the innovative use of digital technologies to improve connections and efficiencies in hospitals and other care organisations, while another £1.5 billion will support the development of new surgical hubs, increased bed capacity and equipment to help elective services recover from the pandemic, including surgeries and other medical procedures. 

All of this should inevitably lead to significant opportunities for suppliers looking to sell to the sector, especially those in the construction, IT, digital and medical equipment industries, but if the last year is anything to go by, opportunities will continue to present themselves for suppliers in almost every conceivable sector as investment in healthcare in the UK continues to gather pace. 

Over the course of January to October 2021, over 6,000 contracts were awarded in the UK healthcare sector, with suppliers ranging from those providing diagnostics equipment and pathology services, to training programmes and energy efficiency consultancy. Whatever your business provides, there will almost certainly be a market for it in healthcare. 

The value of these contracts ranged from billions of pounds to less than £1,000, demonstrating the breadth of the volume and scale of the goods and services required by the NHS and the size of the businesses supplying to them. The biggest contract saw a collection of suppliers agree to provide apprenticeship training and end-point assessment services to the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust. 

Among the other large contracts was a £47 billion deal for a collection of construction firms to build educational and research buildings and residential real estate for the Cumbria, Northumberland and Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust, and a £15 billion contract for a collection of firms to provide research and laboratory services for Public Health England. 

If you’re looking to supply to the healthcare sector, Health Contracts International’s (HCI) powerful database of live healthcare tenders, actionable insights on emerging opportunities, buyer/supplier/industry award analysis and specialist industry news will be indispensable. Get started by downloading our latest report, which focuses on emerging prospects in the UK and worldwide healthcare markets in 2022 and beyond. 

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