HPFT Social Care in the Community Tender:
£36m Framework Bid Guide 2026

The HPFT Social Care in the Community tender is an open framework worth up to £36 million for community support and homecare for adults with mental health needs across Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, known as HPFT, is procuring the Support in the Community Framework through four geographical lots. The deadline is 12:00 noon on 24 November 2026.

The most important point is that this is a threshold competition. The official notice says there is no limit on the number of suppliers appointed to each lot. Providers must pass the conditions of participation and reach the required quality standard. However, the official notice also states that a supplier may bid for a maximum of two lots and may be awarded no more than two. For the HPFT tender, careful lot selection matters as much as response quality.

This guide explains what HPFT is buying, what staff will be expected to do, who can bid, how responses are evaluated, and how to organise the remaining bid period. It is based on the tender pack supplied to Care Sync Experts and the official Find a Tender notice. Always check the latest documents and clarification answers in Atamis before relying on any requirement.

Key takeaways

• The framework is worth up to £36 million and is expected to run from 1 April 2027 to 31 March 2035, subject to the stated framework arrangements.
• There are four geographical lots, but a supplier may bid for no more than two and may win no more than two.
• The HPFT tender pack gives fixed hourly rates of £24.87 for Standard Community Support, £25.83 for Enhanced Community Support, and £28.85 for Homecare.
• CQC registration is relevant where a provider delivers regulated activity, such as personal care. The tender pack says it is not a general condition for admission to the framework.
• The tender pack requires at least 2 out of 4 on every scored question and an overall weighted threshold of 67 per cent.
• Clarification questions close at 12:00 noon on 22 October 2026. Tenders close at 12:00 noon on 24 November 2026.
  
  Watch: The HPFT Tender Explained in Four Minutes
  Prefer to watch? Millie from Care Sync Experts walks through the lots, the rates and the pass or fail checks in just over four minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYcdY0LOwCI

HPFT tender at a glance

Item	Detail
Buyer	Hertfordshire Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust, supported by Herts and West Essex NHS Procurement Services
Framework	Support in the Community Framework
Procurement reference	C455508
Official notice	2026/S 000-092998
Estimated value	Up to £36,000,000 including extensions
Procedure	Open procedure
Framework term	1 April 2027 to 31 March 2035, subject to the stated open framework arrangements
Lots	Four geographical lots across Hertfordshire
Maximum lots per bid	Two
Maximum lots awarded	Two
Suppliers per lot	Unlimited in the official notice
Clarification deadline	12:00 noon, 22 October 2026
Tender deadline	12:00 noon, 24 November 2026

You can review the live HPFT tender page, browse the health and social care tender directory, or open the opportunity on the Atamis procurement portal.

What the Support in the Community Framework covers

The HPFT tender is for one to one support for adults aged 18 to 64 with mental health conditions and eligible care and support needs. Support may be delivered in a person’s own home, in the community, or through a combination of both.

HPFT wants providers to help people build skills, maintain independence, and live meaningful lives in their local communities. This may include people moving on from hospital, residential care, or supported living. Some people will have complex or fluctuating needs, including dual diagnosis, forensic histories, self-injurious behaviour, barriers to engagement, or behaviour that challenges.

The tender pack describes a normal delivery window of seven days a week, from 08:00 to 21:00, with flexibility where HPFT agrees it. Packages are intended for Hertfordshire residents unless the Contract Manager agrees otherwise.

Illustrative image: the framework is intended to support adults to live meaningful, independent lives in their community.

The Connected Lives approach

Delivery must reflect Connected Lives, Hertfordshire’s strengths based approach to adult social care. In practice, that means providing enough support to meet assessed needs whilst helping people develop skills, relationships, confidence, and independence. Providers will need to evidence outcomes, not simply record hours delivered.

The tender pack distinguishes this framework from short term enablement and crisis services. It also makes clear that a framework place does not guarantee referrals or a minimum volume of work.

The four geographical lots

Lot	Area	Estimated value in the official notice
1	South East Hertfordshire	£4.5 million
2	South West Hertfordshire	£8.5 million
3	North West Hertfordshire	£15 million
4	North and Central Hertfordshire	£8 million

The service levels and hourly rates are the same across all four lots. The difference is geographical coverage, so the HPFT tender requires an honest assessment of local delivery capacity.

The official notice limits each supplier to two bids and two awards. This makes lot selection a capacity decision, not a wish list. Prioritise the areas where you already have a credible operational base, recruitment pipeline, travel plan, and local relationships.

Illustrative image: select only the lots you can staff and deliver sustainably.

A practical lot selection test

Before choosing a lot, ask:

• Can we mobilise staff in this area by April 2027?
• Can we cover travel time within the fixed rate?
• Do we understand the local mental health, housing, primary care, and community network?
• Can managers supervise staff and respond quickly to incidents across the whole area?
• Can we accept referrals without weakening existing services?

Standard, Enhanced and Homecare explained

HPFT commissions three service levels. The care coordinator determines the level for each referral according to the person’s assessed needs.

Service level	Regulated activity	Tender pack rate	Typical requirement
Standard Community Support	No regulated activity intended	£24.87 per hour	Daily living skills, appointments, budgeting, community participation, and maintaining independence
Enhanced Community Support	No regulated activity intended	£25.83 per hour	Greater complexity, fluctuating mental health, higher risk, or significant barriers to engagement
Homecare	May include regulated activity	£28.85 per hour	Personal care, specified medication support, and community support where required

Standard Community Support

Staff may help people manage daily routines, money, appointments, home conditions, education, employment, volunteering, and community relationships. HPFT expects a recovery focus, mental health knowledge, culturally competent practice, and safe work with families and carers.

Enhanced Community Support

Enhanced support is for people who need more specialist skills or closer oversight. Examples in the tender pack include dual diagnosis, forensic risk, self-injurious behaviour, emotionally unstable personality disorder, repeated crisis presentations, and discharge from secure or inpatient settings.

Providers may need to demonstrate access to approaches such as motivational interviewing, assertive engagement, dialectical behaviour therapy informed practice, support with hoarding, and dual diagnosis training. Enhanced staff should receive appropriate supervision and recognition for the higher skill requirement.

Homecare

Homecare applies where the package includes regulated activity. Examples may include personal care, physical assistance with eating and drinking, or medication activity for which the provider assumes responsibility.

Providers must hold the correct CQC registration before delivering any regulated activity. CQC confirms that providers must register for each regulated activity they carry on unless an exemption applies. Check the CQC regulated activities guidance against the precise tasks in a referral.

Do you need CQC registration or a rating?

For the HPFT tender, CQC registration is not a general condition of participation and the pack does not specify a minimum CQC rating for admission. A provider without registration may therefore be eligible for Standard and Enhanced Community Support, provided its proposed work does not cross into regulated activity.

Registration becomes mandatory before a provider delivers a regulated activity. Do not rely on labels alone. Whether a task is regulated depends on the activity actually carried out, the person’s needs, and the provider’s responsibility for it.

Provider position	Framework bid	Potential referrals
Not CQC registered	Potentially eligible, subject to every other condition	Standard and Enhanced support that is genuinely outside regulated activity
Registered for personal care, not yet rated	Potentially eligible	All three levels within the scope of registration
Registered and rated Good or Outstanding	Potentially eligible	All three levels within the scope of registration
Registered and rated Requires Improvement	Potentially eligible, subject to the tender pack	Improvement planning and contract monitoring are likely to receive close scrutiny

If registration is part of your growth plan, review our CQC registration support before promising a mobilisation date.

Fixed rates and the sustainability check

The commercial questionnaire asks bidders to accept the three rates. The HPFT tender pack treats these answers as pass or fail. Price is not an opportunity to undercut competitors.

Before confirming acceptance, calculate your cost per delivered hour, including:

• frontline pay, employer National Insurance, pension, holiday, and sickness;
• travel time, mileage, and gaps between visits;
• supervision, training, appraisal, and competency checks;
• management, quality assurance, safeguarding, and on call cover;
• recruitment, DBS checks, systems, insurance, and overheads;
• the higher skills and management input needed for Enhanced work.

The tender pack says routine travel is built into the rate and is not normally paid separately. It also expects frontline staff to receive at least the applicable Real Living Wage, with a higher rate for Enhanced work. Test each lot separately because travel density and recruitment conditions can change the economics.

Who can bid?

The HPFT tender pack allows a single legal entity, a lead provider with subcontractors, or an incorporated joint venture, subject to all stated conditions. Questionnaire 1 is a gate. A failure there can end the bid before the quality response is evaluated.

Key checks in the supplied pack include:

Requirement	What to prepare
Central Digital Platform	Complete and share current supplier information, connected persons, and exclusion information
Local operational presence	Evidence of a base in Hertfordshire, or within the permitted distance of the boundary with relevant delivery evidence
Relevant experience	One anonymised case study from the last three years, within the stated word limit
Financial standing	Accounts and evidence against the stated profitability, liquidity, surplus, or reserves tests
Insurance	Evidence of current cover or a firm commitment to secure the stated levels before award
Data protection	UK GDPR controls and the requested supporting explanation
Recruitment and safeguarding	DBS, safer recruitment, criminal conviction, and safeguarding arrangements
Equality and modern slavery	Current policies and declarations
Form of Tender	Correct signatures from an authorised representative

The experience case study is a serious gate

The case study must evidence work with adults with serious mental illness and complex, fluctuating risk. It also needs to show outcomes that promoted independence, barriers to engagement, positive risk taking, safeguarding, decision specific mental capacity work, and staff preparation.

Choose one case that genuinely covers the question. An impressive but loosely related domiciliary care example will not automatically demonstrate mental health capability.

How the quality response is evaluated

The supplied HPFT tender pack describes four technical questions worth 90 per cent in total and one social value question worth 10 per cent.

Question	Topic	Weight	Word limit
Q1	Outcomes focused support and independence	30%	1,000
Q2	Workforce capacity, capability, and mobilisation	25%	750
Q3	Partnership working and co-production	20%	750
Q4	Quality assurance, technology, and data	15%	500
Q5	Social value	10%	500

The scoring scale runs from 0 to 4. The pack requires a minimum score of 2 on every question and an overall weighted score of at least 67 per cent. A response scoring 2 throughout would reach only 50 per cent, so the minimum score on each question is not a safe target.

Aim for a credible score of 3 across the response, with especially strong evidence in Q1 and Q2, which together carry 55 per cent of the marks. Every answer should:

• address each part of the question in the same order;
• name who does what, when, and how it is checked;
• use evidence from genuine delivery, not generic policy statements;
• state measurable commitments and realistic timescales;
• remain within the word limit and include the required word count;
• distinguish existing practice from a mobilisation commitment.

The tender pack defines the top score as requiring full evidence and material added value. Treat any added value as a deliverable commitment. Do not offer vague extras that cannot be costed, governed, and delivered at the fixed rate.

How referrals and call-offs are expected to work

A place on the framework does not guarantee work. The HPFT tender pack describes a referral process in which HPFT sends an anonymised opportunity to eligible providers in the relevant lot. Providers respond with capacity, the proposed support pattern, an earliest start date, and how they would meet the person’s outcomes.

Where more than one provider can meet the need, the person’s informed choice is central. Providers should therefore prepare a short, accessible, personalised referral response process rather than treating each call-off as a generic sales exercise.

The tender documents appear to describe some call-off details differently in different places. Raise any material inconsistency through Atamis before the clarification deadline and follow the final clarification log.

Contract readiness and KPIs

The supplied specification and draft contract indicate that providers should be ready for requirements including:

• annual appraisals and at least four supervision sessions per employee each year;
• workforce data through the Skills for Care Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set;
• electronic reporting of actual hours delivered;
• outcome measurement, support plan audits, and satisfaction monitoring;
• business continuity evidence, training records, insurance, and annual improvement planning;
• engagement with the Hertfordshire Care Providers Association;
• use of HPFT’s e-brokerage arrangements when implemented.

The pack includes performance expectations for outcomes, delivered hours, satisfaction, support plans, and quality ratings. Build these into your mobilisation plan, reporting system, and price test now.

Key dates

Stage	Date
Tender notice published	1 October 2026
Clarification deadline	12:00 noon, 22 October 2026
Target for final clarification answers	3 November 2026
Tender deadline	12:00 noon, 24 November 2026
Evaluation period	30 November 2026 to 26 February 2027
Intended award decision	1 March 2027
Intended end of standstill	11 March 2027
Framework start	1 April 2027

Use contract reference C455508 in Atamis. Submit HPFT tender clarification questions through the portal only. Plan an internal deadline at least one working day before the official cut-off.

A seven week bid plan

Week	Focus
1	Register in Atamis and on the Central Digital Platform. Download the complete pack. Run a bid decision against every pass or fail condition. Select no more than two lots.
2	Choose the case study, assemble evidence, cost all three rates, and prepare clarification questions.
3	Submit clarifications by 22 October. Draft the case study and Q1.
4	Draft Q2 and complete the training matrix. Draft Q3.
5	Review HPFT’s answers. Draft Q4, Q5, the data protection response, and Questionnaire 1.
6	Complete an independent compliance and scoring review. Confirm that every sub-part is answered and evidenced.
7	Secure signatures, confirm the Central Digital Platform share, upload each file, and submit before the internal deadline.

Common mistakes that could cost a place

• Treating 2 out of 4 as the target score, even though that pattern fails the overall threshold.
• Bidding for more than two lots, contrary to the official notice.
• Forgetting the training matrix requested with Q2.
• Omitting word counts or writing past the stated limits.
• Adding attachments that were not requested.
• Changing the format of the commercial questionnaire.
• Leaving Central Digital Platform information incomplete.
• Qualifying the bid with assumptions that conflict with the specification or contract.
• Using a case study that does not evidence serious mental illness and complex risk.
• Accepting fixed rates without costing travel, supervision, insurance, and mobilisation.
• Contacting HPFT staff outside the official portal process.

For further preparation, see our guides to health and social care tenders, common care bid writing mistakes, and homecare framework bid planning.

Should your organisation bid?

The HPFT tender may be a good fit if you can show recent mental health support experience, a credible local operating model, sustainable delivery at the fixed rates, and evidence for every pass or fail condition.

Think carefully if your mental health experience is limited, your delivery base is distant, or your costs do not work at the stated rates. A framework place without safe staffing or capacity to accept referrals offers little value and still brings governance responsibilities.

Need help with the HPFT tender?

Care Sync Experts can test your eligibility, challenge your lot selection, review the case study, and strengthen the quality and social value responses against the published requirements. We will also say plainly if the evidence points towards waiting for a later reopening.

Book a tender consultation or call Care Sync Experts on 0333 577 0877.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need CQC registration for the HPFT tender?

The supplied tender pack says registration is not a general condition for joining. However, a provider must hold the correct CQC registration before delivering any regulated activity. Standard and Enhanced support must stay outside regulated activity if delivered by an unregistered provider.

How many lots can a provider bid for?

The official Find a Tender notice says a supplier may bid for a maximum of two lots and may be awarded a maximum of two. This corrects an earlier interpretation that suppliers could bid for all four.

What are the hourly rates?

The supplied tender pack gives fixed rates of £24.87 for Standard Community Support, £25.83 for Enhanced Community Support, and £28.85 for Homecare. Providers should verify the final commercial schedule in Atamis before submission.

When is the deadline?

The official notice gives the HPFT tender deadline as 12:00 noon on 24 November 2026. Clarification questions close at 12:00 noon on 22 October 2026. Submit through Atamis using reference C455508.

This article is an independent summary of the tender pack supplied to Care Sync Experts and public notices checked on 6 October 2026. It does not replace the procurement documents, clarification answers, professional legal advice, or independent financial modelling.