Buckinghamshire Home Care DPV: How Providers Join and Win Referrals

The Buckinghamshire Home Care DPV is the Dynamic Purchasing Vehicle through which Buckinghamshire Council commissions regulated home care for adults aged 18 and over across the county. It is worth up to £87 million, runs on two lots, and admits providers on a rolling basis rather than at a single closing date.

If you deliver domiciliary care, live-in care or night support in Buckinghamshire, this is the route that decides whether the Council and the local NHS can send you work. This analysis sets out what the tender actually requires, how admission is scored, how referrals are won once you are on, and where providers gain or lose their place. It is written for owners, registered managers and bid leads who need to decide whether to apply and how to score well when they do.

The essentials:

1. Buyer: Buckinghamshire Council, commissioning some packages for the Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB) ICB
2. Value: up to £87 million excluding VAT
3. Structure: two lots, Lot 1 standard home care and Lot 2 complex or bespoke home care
4. Admission: pass the financial standing check and reach a 55% quality threshold on the Selection Questionnaire
5. Referrals: won through twice-daily mini competitions on the Council's e-Brokerage system

Tender at a glance

Authority: Buckinghamshire Council (commissioning some packages on behalf of the BOB ICB)

Reference: DN643303 (Find a Tender 2023/S 000-006870)

Commercial tool: Dynamic Purchasing Vehicle, a modified Dynamic Purchasing System

Estimated value: £87,000,000 excluding VAT

Lots: Lot 1 Standard home care; Lot 2 Complex or bespoke home care

Term: 3 years from launch, with options to extend by up to 2 years then a further 1 year

Admission portal: ProContract, via the Buckinghamshire Business Portal (supplybucksbusiness.org.uk)

Referral system: e-Brokerage mini competitions, published up to twice a day

Admission threshold: 55% quality, plus a pass on the financial standing assessment

Cohort: adults aged 18+ across all care groups (Care Act 2014, NHS Continuing Healthcare, Home First)

Regulator: Care Quality Commission

Why the Buckinghamshire Home Care DPV matters now

For a home care provider in Buckinghamshire, this is the front door. Council-funded and NHS-funded home care packages are commissioned through the DPV, so a provider that is not admitted simply does not see the work. A provider that is admitted sees referrals published up to twice a day.

The commercial logic is straightforward. The DPV pools approved providers and lets the Council run fast competitions for individual packages rather than one large contract. That is good for new and growing providers, because there is no fixed number of winners at admission and you can apply at points across the life of the vehicle. It also raises the stakes on delivery, because once you are on, the Council watches how you respond to referrals and how well you deliver the packages you accept.

Because this is a Dynamic Purchasing Vehicle rather than a one-off tender, the choice is not "bid or miss out for five years". It is "get admitted, then compete well every day". Both halves need different work, and providers who treat admission as the finish line tend to sit on the list without winning much.

How a DPV works: rolling admission, then daily competition

A Dynamic Purchasing Vehicle is Buckinghamshire's modified version of a Dynamic Purchasing System. If the difference between a framework, a DPS and a spot contract is still fuzzy, our guide to frameworks, DPS and approved provider lists sets out how each one buys.

The system runs in two stages. Stage 1 is admission: you register on the Buckinghamshire Business Portal, complete the Selection Questionnaire and return the supporting annexes, and the Council evaluates whether you meet the criteria for the lot or lots you have applied for. Stage 2 is commissioning: once admitted, you receive referrals through the e-Brokerage system and bid for the packages you can deliver.

The DPV stays open across its life. The Council keeps an Opportunity Notice on the Buckinghamshire Business Portal while it accepts applications, and it gives at least one month's notice before it re-opens to evaluate new bids. If you are unsuccessful, you can re-apply. That rolling design is why the practical question is less about a deadline and more about whether your evidence is ready when the next evaluation window runs.

The two lots: standard and complex home care

You choose which lot or lots to apply for, and the lot determines the kind of packages you are invited to bid on.

Lot 1 is standard home care. It covers the majority of packages: adult social care under the Care Act 2014, NHS Continuing Healthcare packages commissioned for the ICB, and Home First packages for people leaving hospital. Care types include any number of visits a day, single or double-handed calls, short-term waking nights, and non-complex live-in care where appropriate.

Lot 2 is complex or bespoke home care. It is a smaller number of packages where the need sits above standard home care: behaviours that challenge, co-morbidities, complex learning disability or mental health, care in the prison system, or an element of nurse-oversight. Care types include longer visits of 4 or more hours, sleeping and waking nights, and complex live-in care. If you deliver NHS Continuing Healthcare and complex care, Lot 2 is where that capability earns its place.

You can apply for one lot or both. Applying for Lot 2 only makes sense if you can genuinely staff and price complexity, because the Council checks that with a health or social care professional before it awards.

Who the service is for: cohort and statutory context

The cohort is adults aged 18 and over across all care groups, and the work is personal care in a person's own home. That makes it a regulated activity, so your Care Quality Commission registration and rating matter from the first click.

The DPV buys three funding types through one route, and naming the right statutory basis for each is a quiet signal that you understand the work. Adult social care packages sit under the Care Act 2014. NHS Continuing Healthcare packages are commissioned for the ICB under the National Framework for NHS Continuing Healthcare and NHS-funded Nursing Care (2022). Home First packages support people discharged from hospital who are awaiting a full assessment of need, under the hospital discharge and community support model.

Two statutory points have to be exact. Under Care Act 2014 Section 42, the local authority makes or causes a safeguarding enquiry to be made; the provider secures immediate safety, records, refers, shares information and supports the enquiry. And the Mental Capacity Act 2005 has 5 statutory principles and a 2-stage capacity test. Describing the provider as "leading" a Section 42 enquiry, or calling the MCA a "four-part test", is the kind of slip an experienced evaluator marks down at once.

Before you bid: the questions to ask yourself

Providers waste time applying to a vehicle they were never eligible for. Run these checks first. If the answer is no, fix it before you build a submission.

• Are we registered with the CQC to deliver personal care in Buckinghamshire? Home care is a regulated activity, so registration is the baseline.
• Do we hold, or can we commit to, the required insurance? Employers' Liability, Public Liability and Professional Indemnity at the levels the Council sets.
• Can we pass the financial standing assessment and reach 55% on the scored questions? Both are needed for admission, and financial standing fails more providers than they expect.
• Can we cover at least one Community Board Area with reliable staffing? Lot 1 referrals are streamed by area, so honest coverage decides what you even see.
• Can someone own e-Brokerage and respond inside a 2-hour urgent window? Referrals move fast, and speed is a scored behaviour.
• If we bid for Lot 2, can we genuinely staff and price complex packages? The Council checks that with a health or social care professional before it awards.

If those are all yes, you are eligible and the DPV is worth your time. Turning eligibility into won referrals is the next question, and where a Pre-Submission Review and Score My Response earn their place.

Admission: what you need to qualify at Stage 1

Admission turns on two things at once: a pass on the financial standing assessment set out in the Selection Questionnaire Guidance (Annex 4b), and a minimum quality threshold of 55% on the scored questions. Clear both and you are added to the DPV under the lots you applied for. There is no cap on the number of admitted providers, so this is a standard to meet, not a fixed number of places to win.

The Selection Questionnaire mixes three question types. Some are for information only. Some are scored pass or fail, including insurance levels, the mandatory and discretionary exclusions, and confirmation of key policies. Some are scored on quality, and this is where the 55% is won. A quality answer that names the owner of a process, the system or record that captures it, the frequency it is reviewed and the action taken when something goes wrong will clear the bar. A paragraph of adjectives will not.

There is one step that catches providers out. A site visit of around two hours forms part of the Stage 1 evaluation. It is not separately scored, but it is used to affirm what you wrote. Up to two panel members will meet frontline staff and management, look at your rostering system, ask for evidence of safer recruitment, and review redacted support plans across a range of needs. If your written answers describe systems your office cannot show on the day, the visit is where that gap appears.

How referrals are won at Stage 2: e-Brokerage mini competitions

Admission is the start line. Packages are then published as mini competitions on e-Brokerage up to twice a day, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and the two lots are won in different ways.

Lot 1 is a quality-only competition. The price is fixed in Schedule 1, so there is no price to bid; the package goes to the provider with the highest quality score against the referral's requirements. Lot 1 also applies geographical zoning, streaming referrals by Community Board Area, so the areas you declare you cover decide which packages you even see.

Lot 2 is scored 60% quality and 40% price. You submit a price alongside your proposal, price is scored on a lowest-price basis, and the package goes to the most economically advantageous response. A health or social care professional may make a further check that you can meet the requirements before the award is confirmed.

Speed is a scored behaviour in its own right. Standard referrals run for 24 hours from Monday to Thursday, Friday standard referrals close at 8am the following Monday, and urgent referrals close in 2 hours. If two providers tie on score, the package goes to whoever can start closest to the date required. The Council also expects you to respond to every referral you are invited to bid on, even when the answer is no, because that data tells it where capacity and demand sit.

Pricing realism: fixed Lot 1 rates and Lot 2 lowest-price scoring

Pricing on this DPV works differently across the two lots, and getting it wrong is expensive in both.

In Lot 1 the rate is fixed, so the competition is purely on quality and coverage. The realism question is not "what do we charge" but "can we deliver consistent, well-scheduled care at the set rate across the Community Board Areas we have claimed". Overstating coverage to catch more referrals, then handing packages back, damages your standing faster than declining them in the first place.

In Lot 2 you price each package, and price carries 40% on a lowest-price basis. That rewards a lean, accurate cost model for complex care, including waking and sleeping nights, longer visits and any nurse-oversight. Underpricing complexity to win then failing to deliver is the trap; our guide to pricing a domiciliary care tender walks through building a rate you can actually staff. Note too that the award of packages under the DPV may trigger TUPE, so factor in any TUPE implications when you model cost.

The scoring battlegrounds in depth

Three areas decide whether you clear 55% and hold up at the site visit.

The first is the quality-scored Selection Questionnaire answers. Safeguarding, care planning, staffing, recruitment and quality assurance each need a named lead, a named system or record, a stated frequency and an escalation route. Answers that read as intentions rather than mechanisms are where most of the lost marks sit.

The second is financial standing. It is a pass or fail, but it fails more providers than they expect. Check the accounts and credit position the Council will assess before you submit, and if your figures are thin, prepare your explanation and any parent-company guarantee rather than hoping the question is waved through.

The third is coherence between the paperwork and the site visit. The visit exists to test whether your written answers are real, so the rostering system, safer-recruitment evidence and support-plan examples you describe all need to be visible in the office on the day. A pre-submission review that stress-tests the written answers against what the visit will show is what turns a strong submission into an admitted one.

The TenderLab perspective: what an evaluator reads first

Evaluators reward answers they can verify in a couple of minutes and mark down answers that sound impressive but cannot be checked. Across 200+ submissions in comparable adult social care contracts, the same pattern holds.

They look first for named roles and named systems: a registered manager, a care coordinator, an electronic call-monitoring tool, a rostering system. They look for geographic authenticity, real coverage of named Community Board Areas backed by the staffing and travel logic to deliver it. They look for continuity of carer, consistent staff and sensible scheduling with low missed calls. And they look for fast, honest referral behaviour, a provider that responds inside every window, accepts what it can deliver and declines what it cannot.

The through-line is simple: write for the person scoring the answer, evidence every claim, and never let ambition on paper outrun what your rota can support.

Common pitfalls that cost providers marks

Four recur across home care admissions and referral bids.

Generic quality answers are the most common, where "person-centred, flexible and robust" stands in for a named mechanism. Regulator and statutory slips are the most damaging, whether that is misstating who leads a Section 42 enquiry, garbling the Mental Capacity Act, or importing residential or children's language into an adult home care bid. A submission the site visit contradicts loses trust on the day. And overclaiming coverage, declaring county-wide Lot 1 areas to catch more referrals and then handing packages back, is one of the fastest ways to erode standing, because the Council monitors acceptance and hand-back rates.

Win-rate playbook: how to qualify and win referrals

Getting on the DPV is necessary but not sufficient. These moves turn a place on the list into a steady flow of accepted packages.

Map your true Community Board Area coverage before you declare it, and claim only what you can staff. Build a referral-response routine, so a named person owns e-Brokerage, checks it at both daily publication points, and can turn a considered proposal around inside a 2-hour urgent window. Write reusable proposal content for the recurring requirement types, so each response is fast and specific rather than written from scratch under time pressure. Price Lot 2 deliberately against your genuine cost of complex care. Protect continuity from day one, because consistent carers and low missed visits are what keep you scoring on Lot 1 over time. And keep your policies and CQC position current, because a slipped rating or an expired policy can suspend you from receiving referrals.

Our work on the Essex domiciliary framework is a useful comparator: a home care route into a county council where the winning move was specification-mirrored answers with named operational evidence, not volume of words.

Mobilisation and contract management

Every awarded package comes with an Individual Service Contract between the Council and you, issued through the Provider Portal, together with a full copy of the person's care plan. There is one contract regardless of whether the package is adult social care, NHS Continuing Healthcare or Home First; you note the funder so you invoice the correct budget.

Once live, you are held to the service specification and the terms of the DPV Agreement. The Council monitors acceptance and hand-back rates, the quality of delivered care, and continuity, and the Concerns and Suspensions Procedure can pause your referrals if standards slip. Providers who mobilise well treat the first package as the audition for the next fifty: clean records, a responsive office, and delivery that matches the care plan from the first visit.

Key facts and how to apply

Applications run through the Buckinghamshire Business Portal at supplybucksbusiness.org.uk, using the ProContract system. You register, complete the Selection Questionnaire (Annex 4a) and return the annexes listed in the Tender Submission Checklist (Annex 9), including the signed Form of Tender and insurance confirmation.

Because the DPV admits providers on a rolling basis, there is no single public deadline. The Council confirms a submission date at least one month before it evaluates a new round, and keeps an Opportunity Notice live while the vehicle is open. Confirm the current window on the Buckinghamshire Business Portal and the Find a Tender notice before you build your submission, and note that the initial term runs to autumn 2026 with extension options, so a recommissioning may follow.

TenderLab writes specification-mirrored Selection Questionnaire answers with named operational evidence, and stress-tests them with a 72-hour pre-submission review before you submit. 92% win rate across 200+ UK health and social care submissions, from evaluator-trained writers with care sector experience. TenderLab, Companies House 17184263. Book a free consultation on this tender to talk through your DPV application, whether or not we are the right fit for it.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Buckinghamshire Home Care DPV still open to new providers? A Dynamic Purchasing Vehicle stays open across its life and admits providers in evaluation windows the Council re-opens with at least one month's notice. Check the live Opportunity Notice on the Buckinghamshire Business Portal and the Find a Tender notice for the current application window before you build a submission.

Do I need CQC registration to join the DPV? Yes. Home care is a regulated activity, so you must be registered with the Care Quality Commission to provide personal care in Buckinghamshire. Your registration and inspection position are part of how the Council assures itself that you can deliver safely from the first package.

What score do I need to be admitted? You must pass the financial standing assessment and reach a minimum quality threshold of 55% on the scored Selection Questionnaire answers. Meet both and you are added to the DPV under your chosen lots. There is no cap on the number of admitted providers, so it is a standard, not a contest for a set number of places.

How is Lot 1 different from Lot 2? Lot 1 is standard home care at a fixed price, won on quality alone and streamed by Community Board Area. Lot 2 is complex or bespoke care, scored 60% quality and 40% price, where you submit a price with each proposal and the most economically advantageous response wins, subject to a professional check.

How quickly do I have to respond to referrals? Standard referrals run for 24 hours from Monday to Thursday, with Friday standard referrals closing at 8am the following Monday. Urgent referrals close in 2 hours. Responding inside every window, and being able to start soonest, is what wins packages when scores are close.

Can a bid writer help with a DPV application? Yes. The Selection Questionnaire and lot answers are scored on named operational evidence, statutory accuracy and specification alignment, which is exactly what a specialist care-sector bid writer builds. A pre-submission review also stress-tests your answers against what your Stage 1 site visit will show.

Related reading

• Framework vs DPS vs spot contract: which route wins care work
• How to get on a care framework: frameworks, DPS and approved provider lists explained
• How to price a domiciliary care tender
• What CQC rating do you need to bid for care contracts?
• Score My Response: check your answer before you submit
• Domiciliary care bid writing and framework support

Further reading

• Find a Tender: Buckinghamshire Home Care DPV notice
• Care Quality Commission
• NHS Continuing Healthcare National Framework (2022)
• Hospital discharge and community support guidance (gov.uk)