How to win sensory and physical disability support tenders
Sensory and physical disability support is commissioned by councils under the Care Act 2014, not bought as CQC-regulated personal care, so "no CQC registration means we cannot bid" is usually a myth here. The core service is assessment, rehabilitation and enablement, which sits outside CQC registration; the real hard gate is having qualified specialist assessors on your team, including a registered deafblind assessor and rehabilitation officers for visual impairment. The prize is normally a single local sensory hub contract covering sight loss, hearing loss, deafblind support and rehabilitation. We check you qualify for free before you write a word.
Which regime these contracts sit under
These contracts are council-commissioned services under the Care Act 2014, so the legal framework is social-care duties rather than CQC regulation. Section 2 places a prevention duty on councils to provide services that reduce, prevent or delay the need for ongoing care, and sensory rehabilitation is a textbook example of that duty in action. Section 78 plus the statutory deafblind guidance creates a specific duty to identify deafblind residents, keep a record of them and use a specialist assessor. Where a contract is all-age or 0 to 25, children's sensory duties run under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, so you may need both adult Care Act and children's evidence in the same bid. Getting the regime right matters because it tells you what the buyer is actually scoring: independence and outcome measures, reach into hard-to-find populations, and qualified-assessor capacity, not a CQC rating. According to RNIB, more than 2 million people in the UK are living with sight loss, with over 1 million experiencing irreversible sight loss, so councils treat this as a standing statutory need rather than a one-off purchase.
Why CQC is usually not the gate
For pure sensory and physical disability support, you do not need CQC registration to bid, and saying otherwise costs providers contracts they could have won. CQC registers regulated activities such as personal care; assessment, vision and hearing rehabilitation, mobility and orientation training, communicator-guide work and equipment advice are not regulated activities, so they sit outside registration. The CQC angle only bites where a particular contract bundles in regulated personal care, for example a sensory hub that also delivers hands-on personal care to the same clients. Read the specification carefully: if the deliverables are enablement and rehabilitation, expect the eligibility section to test your assessor qualifications, safeguarding and insurance instead of a CQC certificate. If personal care is in scope, you will need the relevant registration for that element only, not for the whole service. Mislabelling your own service as CQC-regulated when it is not can also create a mismatch with your method statements that evaluators notice, so describe the regime accurately and let the assessor evidence do the heavy lifting.
The specialist-assessor gate that decides eligibility
The decisive pass or fail gate in these tenders is qualified specialist assessors, not premises or CQC status. By law, a deafblind assessment must be carried out by a specifically trained specialist, commonly a Level 3 deafblind assessor, and councils discharge their Section 78 duty through the provider, so they will reject bids that cannot evidence one. For visual impairment, expect a requirement for rehabilitation officers for visual impairment, often called ROVIs, and registered or qualified workers for hearing loss. According to GOV.UK statutory guidance for local authorities, councils must identify deafblind residents, maintain a record and use a specialist assessor, which is why this is written as a hard eligibility criterion rather than a quality point. Name your assessors, give their qualifications and registration numbers, and show capacity to cover the contract caseload including cover for leave and sickness. A single named assessor with no resilience is a common reason a strong-looking bid fails at selection, so describe your bench depth, any recruitment or training pipeline, and how you would maintain a compliant deafblind assessment within statutory timescales if a key person left mid-contract.
How these services are packaged and commissioned
Most councils re-commission a single local sensory hub rather than several small contracts, so the prize is usually one combined service. A typical hub covers visual impairment, hearing impairment, deafblind support and rehabilitation under one specification, as seen when City of York Council recommissioned its sensory services and in the London Borough of Waltham Forest Sensory Support Service notice published on Find a Tender. Commissioned deliverables commonly include sensory needs assessments, vision and hearing rehabilitation, mobility and orientation training, communicator-guides for deafblind people, equipment advice and advising frontline social-care staff so they can spot and respond to sensory loss. Because the contract is local and singular, competition is concentrated and incumbents are hard to displace, so your bid has to show measurable outcomes and genuine reach into under-identified groups. According to RNIB figures, around 340,000 people are registered blind or partially sighted in the UK and nearly 80 percent are aged 65 or over, which tells you where the caseload and the evidence of need will concentrate and why partnerships with older-people's services matter.
What scores points in the quality answers
Quality answers win these contracts on three things: assessor capability, measurable independence outcomes, and reach into hard-to-find sensory-loss populations. Evaluators want evidence, not aspiration, so quantify outcomes such as the proportion of clients who regained independent travel after mobility training, equipment provided and used, or registrations completed. Show how you find people who are under-identified, including older people with combined sight and hearing loss, by working with optometry, audiology, GPs and community groups. According to RNIB (2024), the number of people living with sight loss in the UK is projected to rise about 27 percent to around 2.8 million by 2035, which is a credible way to frame future demand and your capacity to meet it. Address communicator-guide provision for deafblind clients explicitly, and explain your independence and outcome measures, because these are usually weighted heavily. Use the council's own outcome framework where one is published, answer the question that is asked rather than restating your general capability, and back every claim with a concrete example the evaluator can score.
How we approach a sensory or disability bid
We start by confirming the regime and the real eligibility gate, then build the assessor evidence and outcome story the specification actually scores. The first step in any bid is reading the specification and scoring matrix to separate pass or fail items, such as the deafblind specialist assessor requirement and insurance, from weighted quality questions. We then map your qualified staff, ROVIs and registered deafblind assessors against the caseload, flag any capacity or cover gaps early, and assemble proof of outcomes and reach. We only take bids we believe you can win, so if your assessor cover or experience does not yet meet the gate, we will tell you what to fix rather than write a bid that fails at selection. For all-age contracts we make sure both Care Act and children's Section 7 evidence is present. The free eligibility check happens before any fee, so you know where you stand before committing a penny.
Sensory and physical disability support tender: readiness checklist
What councils usually test before any quality answer is scored. The hard gate here is qualified assessors, not a CQC rating.
| Requirement | What it usually means | Stage |
|---|---|---|
| Registered deafblind assessor | At least one specifically trained assessor, commonly Level 3, to discharge the Care Act Section 78 duty | Pass or fail |
| Rehabilitation officers (ROVIs) | Qualified rehabilitation officers for visual impairment, with capacity to cover the caseload | Pass or fail |
| Insurance | Public liability and professional indemnity at the council's stated limits | Pass or fail |
| CQC registration | Only required if the contract bundles in regulated personal care; not needed for pure rehabilitation and enablement | Conditional |
| Safeguarding and policies | Up to date safeguarding, GDPR and lone-working policies covering home visits | Pass or fail |
| Outcome evidence | Measurable independence outcomes: mobility, registrations, equipment used | Scored quality |
| Reach into under-identified groups | Links to optometry, audiology, GPs and community groups to find hidden need | Scored quality |
| All-age coverage | Both Care Act (adults) and LASSA 1970 Section 7 (children) evidence for 0 to 25 contracts | Conditional |
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. Text TENDER to get started.
Common questions
Are sensory support services regulated by CQC?
Usually not. The core sensory support service, meaning assessment, vision and hearing rehabilitation, mobility and orientation training, communicator-guides and equipment advice, is not a CQC-regulated activity, so you do not need CQC registration to bid. CQC only applies where a specific contract bundles in regulated personal care. Always check the specification: if it is enablement and rehabilitation, the gate will be your specialist assessors, not a CQC rating.
Who commissions sensory impairment and deafblind services?
Local councils commission them under the Care Act 2014, using the Section 2 prevention duty and the Section 78 deafblind duty, supported by the statutory deafblind guidance. Tenders typically appear on Find a Tender and on council portals such as ProContract (Due North). Children's sensory duties sit under Section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, so a 0 to 25 contract may run through both adults' and children's commissioning.
What qualification do you need to assess a deafblind person?
By law a deafblind assessment must be carried out by a specifically trained specialist assessor, commonly a Level 3 deafblind assessor. According to GOV.UK statutory guidance, councils must identify deafblind residents, keep a record of them and use a specialist assessor, and they discharge that duty through the provider. Having a registered deafblind assessor on your team is therefore a hard pass or fail eligibility requirement, not a nice-to-have.
What is a communicator-guide?
A communicator-guide is a trained worker who supports a deafblind person with communication, access to information and getting around safely, for example relaying conversations, helping with correspondence and guiding on journeys. Communicator-guide provision is a common deliverable in deafblind support contracts. Bids should evidence how you recruit, train and deploy communicator-guides and how you match them to clients' specific communication methods.
Is a sensory support service tendered as one contract or several?
Usually one. Most councils re-commission a single local sensory hub covering visual impairment, hearing impairment, deafblind support and rehabilitation under one specification, as City of York Council and the London Borough of Waltham Forest have done. That makes the contract a concentrated, winner-takes-most prize, so incumbents are hard to displace and your bid needs strong outcome evidence and clear assessor capacity to compete.
How much does it cost to bid with Selective Care Match?
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. The eligibility check is free, so before any fee we confirm the contract is council-commissioned under the Care Act, identify whether CQC applies, and check you can meet the specialist-assessor gate.
Keep reading
Browse all care tender guides, or see care tender writing by service.
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