How to Get Contracts for Domiciliary Care: 2026 Guide
A practical guide to winning domiciliary care contracts in the UK, from CQC registration to framework and DPS bids. 92% win rate across 200+ care bids.
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A domiciliary care contract is a formal agreement to deliver personal care in people's own homes, awarded by a local authority, an NHS body or a private client. Most state-funded work is won through frameworks, dynamic purchasing systems and approved provider lists, not one-off purchases. To get one you need CQC registration for personal care, a credible quality submission and a price that funds the service for its full term.
At a glance
- You must register with the CQC for personal care before you can hold a domiciliary care contract.
- Public opportunities are advertised on Find a Tender and Contracts Finder, and on individual council e-procurement portals.
- Most councils buy domiciliary care through frameworks, a Procurement Act 2023 dynamic market or an approved provider list rather than spot purchasing.
- The Care Act 2014 wellbeing duty and the CQC Single Assessment Framework set the standards commissioners score against.
- TenderLab holds a 92% win rate across 200+ UK care submissions, including the Essex County Council Live at Home 2025 Framework.
What counts as a domiciliary care contract?
A domiciliary care contract is an agreement to provide regulated personal care to people living at home. The work covers help with washing, dressing, eating, medication and continence, plus support that promotes independence. Because personal care is a regulated activity under the Health and Social Care Act 2008, the contract can only be held by a CQC-registered provider.
Contracts come in three broad forms. Local authority contracts are commissioned by adult social care under the Care Act 2014. NHS contracts are commissioned by Integrated Care Boards, including packages funded through NHS Continuing Healthcare. Private contracts are agreed directly with self-funding clients or their families. Each route has a different buyer, a different rate and a different way in.
Do you need CQC registration before you can win contracts?
Yes. No council or ICB will award a domiciliary care contract to a provider that is not registered with the Care Quality Commission for the regulated activity of personal care. Registration is a pass or fail gate at the selection stage of almost every tender.
To register you need a main office in England, a Registered Manager, a Nominated Individual, and a full policy suite covering safeguarding, medicines management, infection prevention, recruitment, consent and governance. You also need a Statement of Purpose, a business plan and evidence of financial viability. The CQC now returns incomplete domiciliary applications at the point of receipt, and a resubmission goes to the back of the queue, so accuracy at first submission protects your launch date.
Plan registration around your pipeline. If a framework you want opens in 6 months, your CQC application needs to be in and confirmed before the submission deadline, because most tenders ask for your registration certificate and current rating.
Where do domiciliary care contracts actually get advertised?
Public domiciliary care opportunities are published on two central government services and on each council's own procurement portal. Find a Tender carries higher-value notices. Contracts Finder carries lower-value and below-threshold opportunities. Individual councils run portals such as ProContract, Delta eSourcing, In-Tend and Jaggaer, and you often have to register on the relevant portal to receive alerts and download documents.
Relying on one source means missing opportunities. The practical approach is to set keyword alerts for "domiciliary care", "home care", "care at home" and "live at home" across Find a Tender, Contracts Finder and the portals covering the counties you can staff. Care England and other sector bodies also publish curated opportunity lists. We track live UK care opportunities on our live tenders page so providers can see what is open before the clarification window closes.
How do frameworks, DPS and approved provider lists differ?
Frameworks, dynamic purchasing systems and approved provider lists are the three routes most councils use to buy domiciliary care, and they behave differently. A framework is a fixed list of approved providers, usually awarded for a set term, that may or may not reopen. A dynamic market under the Procurement Act 2023 stays open for new providers to join throughout its life. An approved provider list works like a flexible roster from which the council allocates packages, often by geographic zone.
The strategic difference is timing. A framework is a single, time-limited chance, so missing the window can lock you out for years. A dynamic market or open framework lets you apply when you are ready, which suits newly registered providers. Read the contract notice to identify which model is in use, because it changes when you bid and how referrals flow once you are on. The Procurement Act 2023, in force since 24 February 2025, brought in the dynamic market and made the social care Light Touch Regime the rule for most domiciliary procurements.
What do commissioners score in a domiciliary care tender?
Commissioners score the quality of your operating model against the published specification, then weigh it against price. The Care Act 2014 wellbeing duty and the CQC Single Assessment Framework sit behind almost every quality question, so your answers need to evidence safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led delivery with named mechanisms rather than adjectives.
The questions that decide most domiciliary bids cover staffing and rotas, call scheduling and missed-call monitoring, recruitment and retention, medication management, safeguarding, electronic call monitoring and care planning, business continuity, and mobilisation. A strong answer names the role that owns the action, the system that records it, the frequency it happens and the outcome it produces. "We monitor calls" scores nothing. "Our care coordinators monitor live call status on our electronic call monitoring system, with any late or missed call flagged within 15 minutes and escalated to the on-call manager" scores. Our 12 tender writing tips break down how evaluators read these answers.
How should you price a domiciliary care bid so it survives the contract?
Price a domiciliary care bid from the cost of safe, legal delivery up, not from the council's old rate down. The Homecare Association sets a minimum price for homecare in England of £32.14 per hour for 2025-26, covering legally compliant pay, travel time, mileage, wage on-costs and a minimum business contribution. The average fee state-funded homecare actually received in the same year was £24.10 per hour, which is the funding gap providers have to manage.
Build your rate around the real drivers: the National Living Wage, travel time and mileage between calls, employer National Insurance, holiday pay, training, supervision and management overhead. A bid that undercuts to win and then cannot recruit or retain carers fails on quality within months. Price assumptions also need to match your method statements, because a commitment to 100% retention or 15-minute response means nothing if the price cannot fund it. Our pre-submission review stress-tests the price against the commitments before you submit.
How do you build a pipeline beyond council contracts?
Council frameworks are the backbone, but a resilient domiciliary care business diversifies its income. NHS Continuing Healthcare packages, commissioned by Integrated Care Boards, fund the full cost of care at home for people with a primary health need, and families have a choice of CQC-registered provider. Self-funding clients pay privately, typically at higher rates than council-funded work, and reach you through reputation, Google reviews and your local presence.
The providers who grow fastest treat each route as a deliberate channel. They win a council framework for volume and referral flow, take CHC packages through their ICB relationships, and build a private-pay book that protects margin. Strong CQC ratings, evidenced outcomes and testimonials feed all three, because every buyer, public or private, checks the same trust signals before they commit.
What separates a winning domiciliary care bid from a runner-up?
The difference between a 5/5 and a 3/5 is operational specificity an evaluator can trust. Runner-up bids recycle generic claims and leave the evaluator with questions about who does what, when and how. Winning bids answer every printed requirement, mirror the specification's language, and prove delivery with named roles, named systems, real frequencies and measurable outcomes.
Our work on the Essex County Council Live at Home 2025 Framework shows the standard. We won the contract with no prior Essex footprint, evidencing a 6-week stabilisation window and a hospital discharge package matched within 24 hours through the named Registered Manager. That is what commissioners reward: a service they can see operating from the first sentence. The 5 tender writing skills that separate winners from runners-up set out the technique in full.
Frequently asked questions
Can a newly registered domiciliary care provider win council contracts? Yes. Open frameworks and dynamic markets under the Procurement Act 2023 let new providers apply when they are ready rather than waiting for a fixed window. You still need CQC registration and a credible quality submission, but a short trading history is not an automatic barrier on most domiciliary routes.
How long does it take to get a domiciliary care contract? CQC registration alone can take several months, and tender timelines run from notice to award over 6 to 12 weeks. Realistically, plan 6 to 9 months from a standing start to a first awarded package, longer if you are registering and bidding at the same time.
Do I need an office in the area I want to bid for? Not always, but many domiciliary specifications expect local delivery capacity, fast response times and a credible recruitment plan for that patch. You can win out-of-area, as our Essex result shows, but the bid must prove you can staff and supervise the work locally from day one.
What is the difference between a framework and a dynamic purchasing system? A framework is a fixed list of providers, usually closed for its term. A dynamic market, the Procurement Act 2023 successor to the DPS, stays open for new providers to join throughout its life. The model decides whether you must bid in a single window or can apply when ready.
How much should I charge for domiciliary care? Price from the cost of compliant delivery up. The Homecare Association's 2025-26 minimum price for England is £32.14 per hour. Your rate must cover pay, travel, mileage, on-costs and overhead, and must fund the commitments in your method statements.
Where can I find domiciliary care tenders for free? Find a Tender and Contracts Finder are free government services, and most council e-procurement portals are free to register on. Set alerts for "domiciliary care", "home care" and "care at home" across the portals covering the areas you can staff.
Ready to win your next domiciliary care contract?
We turn CQC-registered domiciliary providers into framework winners. Evaluator-trained writers who did not draft your bid stress-test it against our 27-criterion quality gate, so the version that reaches the commissioner is the one that scores. 92% win rate across 200+ UK care submissions. Companies House 17184263. Book a free consultation.
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