Official UK procurement notice
Preliminary Market Engagement - Community Nursing Beds for Provision of Assessment and/or Rehabilitation within the Antrim Locality
Procurement agent: Northern Health and Social Care Trust·On behalf of: Business Services Organisation Procurement and Logistics Service
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionThis Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) is being published by Business Services Organisation (BSO) Procurement and Logistics Service (PaLS), on behalf of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust (the Trust), for the purposes of informing and engaging with interested providers regarding the upcoming procurement for Community Nursing Beds for Provision of Assessment and/or Rehabilitation within the Antrim Locality, within Health and Social Care Northern Ireland (HSCNI).
The Trust wishes to award a Contract for the provision of short-term care in general nursing home beds for adults who either require a period of bed based community Assessment and/or Rehabilitation following discharge from an acute hospital (step down) or directly from their own home environment (step-up).
This engagement will take the form of an engagement paper and questionnaire, which interested providers are invited to complete. The CP13 PME Questionnaire – Explanatory Document should be read in conjunction with the CP12 PME Questionnaire (Appendix 1) and the PME Notice.
The purpose of this PME exercise is to raise awareness of an upcoming procurement, gauge the level of interest in the provision of such services, make interested providers aware in advance of the key service requirements, the introduction of the Procurement Act 2023 and Northern Ireland Procurement Policy Note’s (PPN’s) relating to Social Value and Human Rights, cyber security requirements, sustainability and net zero requirements, that will be included in any future tender. This notice has been placed for advertising purposes only. The procurement exercise will be conducted in accordance with the information contained in any final published tender documentation. There is no guarantee a procurement process will run.
CPV: Health and social work services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1PlannedRenewal
Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Northern Health and Social Care Trust buys Health and social work services (CPV 85), and who usually turns up
Northern Health and Social Care Trust’s own published record, next to the published market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are kept out: they attract a different number of bids. Whole-market view: Health and social work services (CPV 85) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Here, local means registered in Northern Ireland (authority’s region).
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners are registered outside Northern Ireland.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the deadline to the first award notice, on competitions that published both dates.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards were announced within 45 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid36%
2–335%
4–626%
7+3%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate25%
Within ±2%58%
Above estimate17%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1Estimate not published
i
How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 69 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid36%
2–335%
4–626%
7+3%
i
Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Below threshold
- Regulatory regime
- Light touch regime
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 3 Feb 2026, 10:35 GMT
- Last source update
- 3 Feb 2026, 10:35 GMT
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-009328- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-061513Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
3 Feb 2026 → 1 Sept 2026 · 4 dates- Planning notice published261 days ago3 Feb 2026, 10:35 GMT
- Market engagement243 days ago20 Feb 2026, 23:59 GMT
The CP13 PME – Explanatory Document and Appendix 1 – CP12 PME Questionnaire are available on eTendersNI (etendersni.gov.uk ↗) under Resource ID/CfT Reference: 6371588.
Please ensure you are registered with eTendersNI under Common Procurement Vocabulary (CPV) Code '85000000 Health and social work services'. Your response to this PME Paper must be completed in 'Appendix 1 - CP12 PME Questionnaire' and submitted as an attachment via the eTendersNI secure messaging area of the Resource ID/CfT Reference: 6371588. The deadline for submission is 3pm on 20th February 2026.
Any interest shown in the PME does not constitute a commitment to participate in a procurement exercise. Non-participation in this PME exercise does not preclude any provider from participation in any future procurement exercise.
Please note that the contract dates in this Notice are anticipated and subject to change. Please also note that the estimated date of publication of Tender Notice is an anticipated date and subject to change.
- Tender notice expected204 days ago1 Apr 2026, 23:59 BST
- Contract starts52 days ago1 Sept 2026, 00:00 BST
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published3 Feb 2026, 10:35 GMTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
3 public bodies on the noticeClients of the procurement agent
- Business Services Organisation Procurement and Logistics ServiceBeneficiary authority
- Regional Business Services Organisation Procurement and Logistics ServiceProcess contact pointProcuring entityBSO PaLS will be conducting the procurement process including this PME process on behalf of the Trust. PaLS are the Centre of Procurement Expertise for Health and Social Care in Northern Ireland.
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender