How to bid for prison and secure healthcare tenders
Prison and secure healthcare in England is commissioned by NHS England's Health and Justice teams, not by local councils, and most contracts are tendered through the Atamis e-tendering platform with the notice published on Find a Tender. To bid you must hold the right CQC registration for the regulated clinical activities involved, evidence safe delivery inside a custodial regime, and answer scored quality questions on clinical governance, workforce, safeguarding and continuity of care. These are multi-million pound, multi-year contracts, so the barrier to entry is high but winnable for established clinical and nursing providers rather than new domiciliary startups. We check you qualify for free before you commit a penny to writing.
Who commissions prison healthcare, and where the tenders appear
Prison and secure healthcare in England is commissioned by NHS England's Health and Justice teams, not by local authorities or individual integrated care boards. NHS England commissions healthcare for all prisons and young offender institutions in England, excluding emergency care, ambulance and out-of-hours services, which sit elsewhere in the system. This is the single most common mistake new bidders make: they hunt for a council or an ICB as the buyer when the commissioner is NHS England nationally, delivered through regional teams and commissioning support units. North East Commissioning Support, known as NECS, frequently leads these procurements, bundling sites into lots by location and service. Recent North West work, for example, was split into five separate tender processes spanning HMPs and Secure Children's Homes, so the same region can carry several live notices at once. Because the buyer is NHS-side, the procurements usually run through the Atamis e-tendering platform, with the contract notice published on Find a Tender. Set alerts on both and check daily, because award windows are tight and a missed notice means a missed cycle of three to five years. Read our guides on the Atamis NHS portal and the Find a Tender service so a portal technicality never costs you a submission you could have won.
The CQC registration gate you must clear first
You cannot win a prison healthcare contract without the correct CQC registration for the regulated activities you will deliver, and it is a hard pass or fail gate that no quality narrative can rescue. The Care Quality Commission has regulated prison health services since April 2013, when commissioning transferred to NHS England, and it inspects secure healthcare jointly with HM Inspectorate of Prisons. Providers delivering regulated activities in secure settings must be registered: the HMP Altcourse healthcare contract, for instance, is held by G4S, registered for diagnostic and screening procedures and the treatment of disease, disorder or injury. Before you write a word, confirm three things. First, that your registration covers the exact regulated activities named in the specification, whether that is treatment of disease, disorder or injury, diagnostic and screening procedures, or nursing care. Second, that your named registered manager is in post and reflected on your CQC record. Third, that your most recent inspection rating will not exclude you, because many secure-setting tenders probe CQC history at the selection stage and may set a minimum rating threshold. Our guide on CQC rating requirements for care tenders explains how ratings are scored and where a Requires Improvement can still be survivable with the right evidenced narrative.
Prison and YOI healthcare versus police custody and forensic services
Prison and young offender institution healthcare is one market; police custody and forensic medical services are a separate one, and the two are tendered through different routes with different evidence demands. NHS England Health and Justice commissions the prison and YOI healthcare estate, covering integrated primary care, mental health, substance misuse and pharmacy inside the secure perimeter. Police custody work is procured separately as Healthcare and Forensic Services in Custody, covering forensic medical examinations of detainees, and is often led by NHS bodies or Offices of the Police and Crime Commissioners. A recent example is the custody healthcare notice 008786-2025 published on Find a Tender. This distinction matters for your bid library and your win strategy. Custody and forensic contracts demand forensic physician and custody nurse capability, chain-of-evidence competence and rapid-response staffing models built around unpredictable detainee flow. Prison healthcare contracts look more like a standing integrated clinical service, with continuity of care as detainees transfer between sites and reintegrate into community services on release. Pitch into the market your evidence actually supports rather than chasing both. If your strength is health-led complex care, the prison estate and our complex care tender route are likely to fit your registration and clinical history far better than forensic custody work.
How the tender is structured and scored
Expect a two-stage process: a selection stage on eligibility, then scored quality questions that decide the award. The selection stage screens CQC registration, professional indemnity and public liability insurance, minimum turnover, financial standing and the standard grounds for exclusion, and is largely pass or fail. Fail it and your quality answers are never read, so treat it as a checklist, not a draft. The scored stage is where places are genuinely won, through written method statements on clinical governance, safeguarding of a vulnerable and high-risk population, workforce recruitment and retention in hard-to-staff settings, continuity of care on transfer between establishments, substance misuse and mental health pathways, and integration with the wider prison regime and community services on release. Under the Provider Selection Regime and the Procurement Act 2023, NHS health services procurement weighs quality, value and social value rather than defaulting to lowest price. Read every word limit and scoring descriptor before you draft. A top-band answer typically needs specific, evidenced, secure-setting examples with named outcomes, not generic clinical policy lifted from a domiciliary bid. Tender clarification questions are your friend here, so use them to pin down ambiguous requirements and mobilisation expectations before you commit to a structure. We map each question to its rubric and write to the top scoring band.
Contract scale, lots and finding a winnable entry point
Prison healthcare contracts are typically multi-million pound and multi-year, but smaller pilots and single-service lots offer realistic entry points for providers without a custodial track record. Integrated Prison Healthcare at HMP Nottingham was awarded at GBP 21,861,609 for the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2027, according to the Contracts Finder award notice, which is representative of full integrated-service scale. At the other end, NHS England South West ran a Prison-to-Community Specialist Clinical Pathways pilot valued at GBP 893,000 over one year from 1 April 2025, published on Find a Tender, aimed at reducing reoffending risk. The gap between those two figures is your strategy. For an established clinical or nursing provider without a prison record, the route in is rarely the GBP 22m integrated contract against incumbents with years of HMIP-inspected delivery. Target a discrete lot, a specialist clinical pathway such as the South West pilot, or a subcontracting or consortium role on a larger bid where your registration and clinical evidence are decisive rather than marginal. Because NECS and similar units bundle sites into lots by location and service, you can bid the lots that match your geography and clinical capability and leave the rest. We help you pick the lot you can actually win, then build the case for it.
How we help you bid, and what to do next
Start with a free eligibility check so you do not spend weeks on a bid that fails at the CQC or financial gate. We confirm your registration scope, named registered manager, inspection history, insurance limits and turnover against the published specification, then build a scoring-aware response that answers each quality question to its top band with evidenced secure-setting examples. Because prison and secure healthcare is a higher-barrier health market, this opening conversation is honest about whether you are ready for a full integrated contract or should target a single lot, a specialist pathway, or a subcontract first. If you already deliver health-led care, our CHC and complex care experience transfers directly into the clinical governance, safeguarding and continuity-of-care questions these tenders score hardest, so you are not starting from a blank page. Read our CHC homecare framework application guide to see how the same evidence base is marshalled for NHS-commissioned clinical work. When you are ready, send us the Atamis notice or your CQC registration details and we will tell you, free, whether it is worth bidding and which lot gives you the strongest chance of a win.
Prison and secure healthcare tender readiness checklist
What NHS England Health and Justice procurements typically check before any scored answer is read.
| Requirement | What it usually means | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| CQC registration | Registered for the specific regulated activities in the spec, for example treatment of disease, disorder or injury, diagnostic and screening procedures, or nursing care, with a named registered manager in post | Pass or fail |
| Commissioner and portal | Buyer is NHS England Health and Justice, often via NECS, with the tender on Atamis and the notice on Find a Tender | Find the tender |
| Financial standing and turnover | Minimum turnover and accounts sufficient for a multi-million pound, multi-year contract such as the GBP 21.9m HMP Nottingham award | Pass or fail |
| Insurance | Professional indemnity and public liability at the contract's required limits for clinical delivery in secure settings | Pass or fail |
| Secure-setting evidence | Demonstrable experience delivering safely inside a custodial regime, or a credible mobilisation and partnership plan if entering via a lot or subcontract | Scored |
| Clinical governance and pathways | Method statements on safeguarding, mental health, substance misuse, continuity on transfer, and integration with community services on release | Scored |
| Social value and PSR alignment | Reducing reoffending, addressing health inequalities and continuity into the community, weighted under the Provider Selection Regime and Procurement Act 2023 | Scored |
Not sure if you qualify for a tender? We check it for free, before you pay anything, and we only take bids we believe you can win. See our continuing healthcare tender writing or text TENDER to get started.
Common questions
Who commissions healthcare in prisons in England?
NHS England commissions healthcare for all prisons and young offender institutions in England, through its Health and Justice teams, excluding emergency care, ambulance and out-of-hours services. It is not commissioned by local councils. Regional teams and commissioning support units such as North East Commissioning Support, known as NECS, often run the procurements, bundling prison sites into lots by location and service.
Do prison healthcare providers need to be CQC registered?
Yes. Providers delivering regulated activities in secure settings must be registered with the Care Quality Commission for those specific activities, and registration is a hard pass or fail gate in the tender. CQC has regulated prison health services since April 2013, when commissioning transferred to NHS England, and it inspects secure healthcare jointly with HM Inspectorate of Prisons. Confirm your registration scope and named registered manager cover the specification before bidding.
What is the difference between prison healthcare and custody healthcare?
Prison and young offender institution healthcare is commissioned by NHS England Health and Justice and covers integrated primary, mental health and substance misuse services inside the secure estate. Police custody work is procured separately as Healthcare and Forensic Services in Custody, covering forensic medical examinations of detainees, often led by NHS bodies or Offices of the Police and Crime Commissioners. They need different evidence, so bid into the market your capability actually supports.
How much are prison healthcare contracts worth?
They are typically multi-million pound and multi-year. Integrated Prison Healthcare at HMP Nottingham was awarded at GBP 21,861,609 for 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2027. Smaller, more winnable lots also exist: NHS England South West ran a Prison-to-Community Specialist Clinical Pathways pilot worth GBP 893,000 over one year from April 2025. Established providers without a prison track record should usually target a discrete lot or subcontract first.
How do you bid for NHS prison healthcare contracts?
Set alerts on Atamis and Find a Tender, confirm your CQC registration and financial standing pass the selection stage, then answer the scored quality questions on clinical governance, workforce, continuity of care and social value to their top band with evidenced secure-setting examples. Use clarification questions to remove ambiguity before drafting. Under the Provider Selection Regime and Procurement Act 2023, quality and value outweigh lowest price.
How much does it cost to use Selective Care Match for a prison healthcare bid?
Your first tender is £795. We only take bids we believe you can win, and if a loss is clearly down to our writing error we rewrite the next one free. Our win rate is 96 percent. Prison and secure healthcare is a higher-barrier market, so we start with a free eligibility check to confirm your CQC registration and financial standing fit the specification before you commit.
Got a tender to check?
Text TENDER to +44 7822 030677and we'll tell you free whether you'd qualify, before you spend a penny.