RM6397 Closes 3pm on 21 September: The Final Fortnight Checklist for Staffing Agencies
RM6397 Closes 3pm on 21 September: The Final Fortnight Checklist for Staffing Agencies
Submissions for RM6397 Clinical and Non-Clinical Temporary and Permanent Staff close at 3pm on Monday 21 September 2026 via the CCS Bravo portal, and late entries are locked out the moment the clock ticks past. With the clarification window now closed as of 3 September 2026, the pack is fixed and the two weeks ahead are about execution, not strategy.
This is the NHS Workforce Alliance framework that replaces the previous RM6281 and RM6277, carries no automatic transfer, and opens a four-year term from February 2027 across twelve lots worth an estimated £2bn excluding VAT. If you already have a draft response open, the next thirteen days decide whether you make it in or spend the next four years watching competitors service NHS trusts you currently hold.
What the final fortnight is really for
Most agencies treat the last two weeks as a mad scramble to finish writing. That is a mistake. The writing should be at version three by now. The final fortnight is for execution discipline: checking every mandatory field is answered, every document is named and uploaded to the correct section, every pricing cell rounds correctly, and every person who needs to sign has actually signed.
The Bravo portal does not forgive. It will reject your submission if a single mandatory attachment is missing, if your CDP share code is mistyped, if a signatory field is blank, or if you upload a 12MB file where the limit is 10MB. None of these are writing problems. They are process problems, and they are the reason competent agencies miss deadlines.
Day-by-day plan from today to 3pm on 21 September 2026
Start with lot confirmation. Print the lot descriptions from the tender pack, lay them in front of your commercial lead, and confirm which lots you are actually bidding. Some agencies bid eight lots in the belief that volume improves odds. It does not. Every lot you bid must meet the minimum capability thresholds, and bidding a lot you cannot credibly service dilutes evaluator confidence across your entire submission. Choose three or four lots where you hold genuine capability and recent contract evidence. Mark the rest as out of scope.
Tuesday 8 to Thursday 10 September: lock your pricing. Open the pricing schedule template, fill every mandatory cell, check your daily rates against what you actually charge today, and run the formula checker in the Excel file. The schedule includes validation macros. If a cell turns red, the portal will reject the file. Fix it now, not at 2.45pm on deadline day. Save the final version as read-only and email it to your finance director with a request for written sign-off by Friday 13 September. Do not allow further changes after that point.
Friday 11 to Monday 14 September: upload all policies and accreditations. RM6397 requires safeguarding policies, equality and diversity statements, GDPR compliance documentation, and depending on your lot selection, evidence of CQC registration, professional indemnity insurance, and clinical governance frameworks. The named documents must match what you listed in your method statements. If your case study on page 11 references your Level 3 safeguarding training programme, the uploaded certificate must show Level 3, not Level 2. Evaluators cross-check.
Tuesday 15 September: complete your CDP share code entry and upload modern slavery and tax compliance declarations. The Bravo portal pulls your company registration number, but you must manually generate and enter the share code from the Cabinet Office supplier registration system. This is a separate login. If you have never generated a CDP code before, allow ninety minutes. The system times out.
Wednesday 16 to Friday 18 September: conduct an internal read-through with someone who has not written the bid. Give them the evaluation matrix from the tender pack and ask them to score your submission as if they were the evaluator. A common failure pattern at this stage is realising your case studies do not actually answer the question asked. For example, Lot 4 (Allied Health Professionals) asks how you ensure clinical supervision for locum staff. Many agencies write three paragraphs about recruitment vetting. That is not supervision. If your read-through flags a mismatch, rewrite that section now.
Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September: do nothing. If you are still writing on the final weekend, you have already lost control of the process. Use the weekend to rest.
Monday 21 September, by 10am: upload everything to the portal and press submit. Do not wait until 2.30pm. The portal runs slowly under load in the final hour, file uploads time out, and if your submission errors at 2.58pm you have no time to fix it. Aim for 10am. Once submitted, download the confirmation receipt and forward it to your managing director.
The three most common late-stage failures
The first is assuming your case studies from the previous RM6281 framework still apply. They might, but only if the evaluation criteria are identical. RM6397 uses a different scoring model for several lots, particularly around clinical governance and safeguarding. Evaluators score what you write against the published criteria, not against general sector experience. Read the question, then read your answer, then read the question again.
The second is pricing errors that trigger automatic disqualification. The RM6397 pricing schedule includes cap rates for several lots. If your submitted hourly rate for a Band 5 nurse exceeds the published cap, your bid for that lot is rejected regardless of quality score. Check every rate against the cap table in the tender pack appendix. A £42 rate where the cap is £41.50 will eliminate you.
The third is missing the e-learning evidence requirement for clinical lots. Lots 1, 2, 3, 4, and 9 require proof that your temporary staff complete mandatory NHS e-learning modules before placement. The evaluator looks for a named system (ESR, TRAC, Managed Learning Environment) and a sample compliance report dated within the last six months. A policy document that says "we ensure compliance" scores zero. A screenshot of your learning management system showing 87 per cent completion for safeguarding modules in August 2026 scores full marks.
Worked example: how a £40m agency lost on a 4-mark policy question
An agency bidding Lot 1 (Nursing and Midwifery) submitted a strong technical response, scoring 78 out of 100 on the service delivery questions. They lost the lot to a competitor who scored 72, because they scored 1 out of 5 on the safeguarding policy question and the competitor scored 5 out of 5. The question asked for a description of the agency's process for managing safeguarding disclosures from locum staff on placement. The losing agency uploaded their safeguarding policy, a comprehensive 22-page document covering recruitment vetting, DBS checks, and training. It did not describe the process for managing a disclosure. The winning agency wrote one page: a flowchart showing the steps from disclosure to escalation, named the responsible person (Clinical Governance Lead), gave the response timeframe (immediate verbal report, written report within 4 hours), and included a redacted example from a real incident in March 2026 showing the process in action. The evaluator scoring that question had a checklist: process described, responsible person named, timeframe given, evidence provided. Four elements, each worth 1.25 marks. The flowchart scored full marks in six minutes.
That 4-mark gap was the difference between a £12m call-off contract and nothing.
What to do on 22 September if you missed it
If you miss the 3pm deadline on 21 September 2026, your submission will not be accepted. The portal locks at 3.00pm and CCS does not grant extensions for late uploads, technical issues on your side, or misread deadlines. The only exception is a verified portal outage on CCS's side, which is published on the Bravo service status page. If the page shows green at 3pm on 21 September, you have no recourse.
Your options from 22 September onward are limited. You cannot access NHS trusts via RM6397 for call-offs after February 2027, but you can still bid direct awards where the trust has not mandated framework use, and you can wait for the mid-term entry window if CCS opens one (they did on the previous RM6281 framework in year two, but there is no guarantee they will repeat that). The more practical route is to subcontract through an agency that did make the deadline. That costs you margin, typically 8 to 12 per cent of contract value, but it keeps you in the market while you prepare for the next cycle.
Why we do not charge a fee for RM6397 bids
Glaxtons does not charge upfront fees for framework bid writing. We work on a success fee tied to call-off contracts won after you are awarded a place on the framework, not to the framework award itself. That matters for RM6397 because framework award is binary (you are either on the lot or you are not), but revenue comes from individual trust call-offs over the four-year term. If you make it onto Lot 1 but never win a contract, we earn nothing. That aligns our interest with yours: getting you onto the framework in a position to compete, not just getting you a place and walking away.
For agencies still finalising their submission with less than two weeks to go, we can provide a rapid technical review of your draft, flag the gaps that will cost you marks, and fix the sections that do not answer the question. That is not a full bid write. It is a senior review with edits, delivered in 48 to 72 hours. If you need that, call the number below or submit a request through the urgent callback form.
Frequently asked questions
Can I submit after 3pm on 21 September if I have technical issues?
No, unless the Bravo portal itself is down and CCS has published a service outage notice. If the issue is on your side (slow internet, file upload timeout, forgotten login), CCS will not accept a late submission. The portal locks at 3.00pm on 21 September 2026 regardless of individual circumstances. The only safe approach is to submit by 10am on deadline day, which gives you five hours to resolve any last-minute problems.
Do I need to bid all twelve lots to be competitive?
No. Bid only the lots where you hold genuine recent contract evidence and meet the technical requirements. Evaluators score each lot independently, and a weak bid on Lot 7 does not improve your chances on Lot 3. Most successful agencies bid between two and five lots. Bidding all twelve suggests a scattergun approach and raises evaluator doubt about your actual capability in any single area.
What happens if my pricing is slightly above the cap rate for one cell but below it for others?
If even one cell in your pricing schedule exceeds the published cap for that lot, your entire bid for that lot is disqualified. The evaluation team applies caps mechanically during the compliance check before scoring begins. If you are close to a cap, round down. A £0.50 difference in hourly rate will not affect your commercial position over a four-year term, but exceeding the cap by £0.01 will eliminate you immediately.
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