Pembrokeshire Domiciliary Care DPS: How to Join and Win
Pembrokeshire domiciliary care DPS runs to December 2033 and is open to join now. Read the CIW rules, scoring and bid strategy from a 92% win-rate team.
Image: A home carer supporting older people at home, illustrating the Pembrokeshire domiciliary care and support DPS.
Pembrokeshire Domiciliary Care and Support DPS: Bid Strategy
Posted by the TenderLab Bid Team on 6 August 2026. Last updated: 6 August 2026.
Pembrokeshire County Council is running a Dynamic Purchasing System for domiciliary care and support that stays open to new providers until December 2033. If you deliver home care anywhere in South West Wales, you can still apply to join the Pembrokeshire domiciliary care DPS today.
A DPS behaves differently from a standard tender. There is no single closing date you either hit or miss. Instead there is a live list of approved providers that the council and Hywel Dda University Health Board draw from whenever an adult needs support to remain at home.
But being admitted is not the same as being busy. Admission depends on meeting the published selection criteria, and individual packages are allocated under rules where price is not the only criterion. Clearing the gate is step one, not the finish line.
This analysis explains what the Pembrokeshire domiciliary care DPS covers, which cohort and Welsh statutory framework apply, where applications are won and lost, and how to build a submission that Care Inspectorate Wales registration and evaluator scrutiny will both respect.
Tender at a glance
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Commissioning authority: Pembrokeshire County Council, jointly with Hywel Dda University Health Board
Contract title: Dynamic Purchasing System for the Provision of Domiciliary Care and Support Services
Service and cohort: Domiciliary care and support for adults assessed as needing care to live independently at home
Estimated value: £114m excluding VAT over the life of the DPS
Procedure: Dynamic Purchasing System, open to join on a rolling basis throughout its life
Lots: None
Term: 15 January 2024 to 3 December 2033
Application deadline: 2 December 2033 at 17:00 (rolling DPS entry)
Region: South West Wales (UKL14)
Award: Price is not the only criterion; the full award and selection criteria are set out in the DPS documents
Pay and travel: The notice records minimum pay of £11.50 per hour and mileage of 45p per mile
Regulator: Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW)
Find a Tender reference: 000248-2024
Source: find-tender.service.gov.uk notice 000248-2024
Skip ahead to uncover:
- What the Pembrokeshire domiciliary care DPS actually is
- The cohort supported to live independently at home
- Care Inspectorate Wales registration is the first gate
- Where a domiciliary DPS application is won and lost
- What evaluators reward in a Welsh domiciliary submission
- The mistakes that cost providers marks
- A win-rate playbook for the Pembrokeshire DPS
- Mobilisation and what happens after you join
- Frequently asked questions
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What the Pembrokeshire domiciliary care DPS actually is
It is a rolling framework, not a fixed-deadline tender. A Dynamic Purchasing System runs in two stages. First, providers apply to be admitted by meeting the published selection criteria. Second, the buyer runs call-offs against that approved list every time it needs a care package.
The system opened on 15 January 2024 and runs to 3 December 2033, with a stated application deadline of 2 December 2033 at 17:00. Because entry is rolling, that end date is a horizon rather than a scramble. You can apply this month, next quarter or next year, and a compliant application must be admitted.
The estimated value is £114m excluding VAT across the life of the DPS. It carries no lots, and it covers South West Wales, the UKL14 region. Pembrokeshire County Council commissions it jointly with Hywel Dda University Health Board, which tells you health-funded and hospital-discharge packages sit alongside social care ones.
For the exact rules on how packages are offered and awarded, read the live pack on Find a Tender under notice 000248-2024. Price is not the only criterion, and the full award and selection detail is set out in the DPS documents there.
The cohort supported to live independently at home
Adults in their own homes. The service is domiciliary care and support for adults assessed as needing care to live independently at home, which is a broad cohort rather than a single client group.
In practice that spans older people, adults with a physical disability or sensory loss, people living with dementia, adults with long-term health conditions, and people needing reablement after a hospital stay. Support ranges from help with personal care, medication and daily living through to more complex, health-linked packages.
Because Hywel Dda University Health Board co-commissions, expect a proportion of packages tied to hospital discharge and continuing health-funded care. That raises the bar on clinical liaison, timeliness and the ability to start a package quickly.
Everything sits under the well-being duty in the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. Care and support are built around personal outcomes and what matters to the person, not a fixed task list. Your submission should speak that language, because the commissioners do.
Care Inspectorate Wales registration is the first gate
You cannot deliver this contract without it. In Wales, a domiciliary support service is a regulated service under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, and it must be registered with Care Inspectorate Wales. This is Wales, so the Care Quality Commission and the Care Act 2014 do not apply.
Registration is not a formality. It requires a named Responsible Individual, a registered manager, and a Statement of Purpose that matches what you actually deliver. The care workers you deploy must also register with Social Care Wales, the workforce regulator, which many English providers overlook.
Your statutory framework is the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 for duties and the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 for regulation. Where mental capacity is in question, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 applies in Wales as it does in England, including its five principles and two-stage capacity test.
Get the regulatory frame right and an evaluator relaxes. Get it wrong, cite the CQC or the Care Act, and you have signalled that this bid was written for another country.
Where a domiciliary DPS application is won and lost
At the selection stage first, then at every call-off. Admission to the DPS turns on the selection criteria: registration, insurances, financial standing, safeguarding arrangements, policies, capacity and relevant experience. Meet them and you are on the list.
The work itself is decided later, at call-off. This is where price is not the only criterion. Locality and rural reach, available capacity, continuity of carer, responsiveness and quality all feed the decision, in the balance set out in the DPS documents.
That two-stage shape should change how you write. The selection response has to be clean, complete and evidenced, because a single missing policy or gap in cover can stall admission. The call-off response has to prove you can actually staff the postcode in question, at the price offered, from day one.
Do not guess the weightings. Read the published DPS documents on Find a Tender and mirror them line by line. If a requirement is stated, answer it in the buyer's own order and language, then evidence it with a named system or outcome.
What evaluators reward in a Welsh domiciliary submission
Named, specific, Wales-correct evidence. Evaluators score what they can verify, not what sounds warm. A claim like "we provide person-centred care" earns nothing until you attach the mechanism, the role and the outcome behind it.
For a Pembrokeshire home care package that means concrete detail: your electronic call monitoring system and how you act on a missed visit, your medication administration record process, your rostering approach to continuity of carer, and how you plan travel across a rural county on 45p per mile. Show the machinery, not the adjective.
This is the read we bring from 200+ submissions and a 92% win rate across UK health and social care. Our writers are evaluator-trained and most came off the frontline first, as carers, seniors, deputies and registered managers, so they know which sentence a scorer believes. You can see how we approached the Essex Live at Home domiciliary framework for a comparable cohort.
When you can, price and staff the answer before you write it. Specification-led bid writing for domiciliary care starts from the buyer's document, not a library of stock paragraphs.
The mistakes that cost providers marks
Copying an English bid. The most common and most costly error in a Welsh submission is regulatory contamination: citing the CQC, the Care Act 2014 or Section 42 safeguarding when the correct references are Care Inspectorate Wales, the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 and RISCA 2016.
The next is the generic answer. "Robust", "flexible" and "tailored" with nothing attached read as filler to a scorer who has seen them a hundred times. Every such word needs an immediate named mechanism or it should be cut.
Three more traps recur in domiciliary bids:
- Underpricing below the fair-work floor. The notice records minimum pay of £11.50 per hour and 45p per mile; a rate that cannot fund those is a flag, not a saving.
- Ignoring rural reality. A city rota model does not survive Pembrokeshire's geography, and evaluators know it.
- Thin capacity evidence. Claiming you can cover a postcode is not the same as showing the staff, the recruitment pipeline and the travel plan that prove it.
A second pair of eyes catches most of these before a buyer does. A TenderLab pre-submission review reads the draft the way an evaluator will, against the published criteria.
A win-rate playbook for the Pembrokeshire DPS
Six moves separate an admitted, busy provider from a stalled application.
- Lead with CIW compliance. Put your registration, named Responsible Individual, registered manager and Statement of Purpose front and centre, and confirm your workers are registered with Social Care Wales.
- Build a rural-capacity model. Map travel time and clustering across South West Wales, cost it against 45p per mile, and show how you keep visits reliable in a dispersed county.
- Price to the fair-work floor and prove it. Fund at least £11.50 per hour, show the rate is sustainable, and connect pay to retention and continuity.
- Engineer continuity of carer. Name the rostering system, the electronic call monitoring, and the escalation route when a visit is missed.
- Route safeguarding the Welsh way. Evidence your duty to report an adult at risk to the local authority under the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, in line with the Wales Safeguarding Procedures.
- Mirror the documents, then test the draft. Answer the DPS pack in its own order, then score my response against the criteria before you submit.
Mobilisation and what happens after you join
Readiness beats reaction. Being on the DPS is worthless if you cannot start a package when the call-off lands. The providers who win volume are the ones ready to mobilise inside days, not weeks.
That means a CIW-registered manager already in post, staff who are Social Care Wales-registered, DBS-checked and trained, and your rota, electronic call monitoring and medication records live rather than promised. Care and support plans should be built around the well-being outcomes the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 requires.
Expect the council and health board to monitor delivery against the standards set out in the DPS documents, covering areas such as missed and late calls, timely reviews and safeguarding. Continuity of carer and responsiveness will shape whether you keep receiving call-offs.
Treat every early package as your audition for the next one. In a DPS that runs to 2033, reputation compounds.
Frequently asked questions
Is the Pembrokeshire domiciliary care DPS still open to join?
Yes. The DPS is open on a rolling basis, with a stated application deadline of 2 December 2033 at 17:00. Any provider that meets the published selection criteria can apply to be admitted at any point during its life, rather than waiting for a single closing date.
Who regulates domiciliary care in Pembrokeshire?
Care Inspectorate Wales regulates domiciliary support services in Pembrokeshire under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016. The Care Quality Commission does not operate in Wales. Care workers must also register individually with Social Care Wales, the Welsh social care workforce regulator.
How is care work awarded once you are on the DPS?
Through call-offs against the approved provider list. When a package is needed, the council or Hywel Dda University Health Board offers it under the rules set out in the DPS documents. Price is not the only criterion; locality, capacity, continuity and quality also count.
What pay and mileage does the tender expect?
The Find a Tender notice records a minimum pay rate of £11.50 per hour and mileage of 45p per mile. Any price you offer at call-off needs to fund those figures sustainably, which is also a signal of the fair-work compliance that Welsh commissioners look for.
How much is the Pembrokeshire domiciliary care DPS worth?
The estimated total value is £114m excluding VAT across the life of the DPS, which runs from 15 January 2024 to 3 December 2033. There are no lots. The value is spread across many call-off packages rather than awarded as a single block.
Do I need CIW registration before I apply?
Registration as a domiciliary support service with Care Inspectorate Wales is the baseline for delivering the contract, so treat it as the first gate. Confirm your exact position and timing against the selection requirements set out in the DPS documents on Find a Tender.
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