Bid writing · Specialism
Reablement and hospital discharge tenders.
Short-term, outcome-funded, and scored on how quickly people stop needing you. The opposite of every other social care contract.
You are paid to make yourself unnecessary.
Every other care contract rewards delivered hours. Reablement rewards the opposite: the fewer hours someone needs at the end of six weeks, the better you have done.
Providers moving across from domiciliary care write reablement answers about reliability and continuity, then score poorly. The panel is not asking whether you turn up. It is asking what percentage of people leave your service needing no ongoing package, how you measure functional gain, and how your staff are trained to stand back rather than step in.
The other half of the assessment is the hospital. Discharge to assess contracts live or die on how fast you can accept a referral, and councils under bed-pressure count that in hours, not days.
- ReablementSix-week short-term reablement and enablement services
- D2ADischarge to assess, pathways 1 and 2
- Step-downShort-term bedded step-down and intermediate care
- CrisisRapid response and admission avoidance services
- Trusted assessorTrusted assessor and hospital-facing coordination roles
- Therapy-ledServices with occupational therapy or physiotherapy input
What panels probe
Six themes, none of them about hours delivered.
Outcome measurement
Your baseline and exit measures, whether that is Barthel, the Outcomes Star or a local tool, and the percentage leaving with no ongoing package.
Referral to start
Hours from referral to first visit, and how you hold capacity for a discharge that arrives at 4pm on a Friday.
Staff mindset
How you train and supervise workers to prompt rather than do. This is a genuine culture change and panels ask how you evidence it.
Risk and equipment
Falls risk in the first 72 hours after discharge, equipment ordering and fitting, and the home environment assessment.
Therapy interface
How your workers take direction from occupational therapists and physiotherapists, and what happens when a plan needs changing mid-week.
Onward handover
What happens at week six for people who still need support, and how you avoid a gap between your service ending and a long-term package starting.
Straight answer
Reablement is not a starter contract.
It looks attractive because volumes are guaranteed and the hours are block-funded. In practice it demands therapy-informed staff, fast mobilisation, and reporting most domiciliary providers are not set up for.
If you have no outcome data to quote, your answers will read as theory against competitors quoting real percentages. We would usually suggest building that evidence on a smaller contract first, and we will say so before you commit.
- Outcome dataA percentage leaving with no ongoing package. Without it your answers read as theory.
- Same-day acceptanceDischarge contracts are judged on hours from referral to first visit, not days.
- Therapy-informed staffWorkers trained and supervised to prompt rather than do. Panels ask how you evidence it.
- Reporting capabilityBaseline and exit measures recorded per person, not a monthly total of hours.
Most providers build this on a smaller contract first. That is usually our advice.
Got a tender with a deadline on it?
Send the closing date and the portal link. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth your time, before you pay us anything.