Provider Selection Regime · 4 of 4
Finding PSR Opportunities and Transparency Notices
Most NHS healthcare contracts are not advertised as open competitions. They surface through PSR transparency notices, ICB commissioning intentions and market engagement exercises. A provider watching only for tender notices sees a fraction of the work being placed in its own area.
What we do
- Build the notice watch that matters: Find a Tender, the commissioning portals your ICBs use, and the transparency notices that reveal a route before and after an award.
- Track ICB commissioning intentions and board papers, which frequently signal a service review a year or more before any notice appears and are the earliest reliable signal available.
- Map contract expiry dates across the services you could deliver in your patch, so the conversation happens before the continuation decision rather than after the transparency notice.
- Get you into market engagement, provider events and information requests, which is how authorities form the view that later becomes a most suitable provider decision.
- Qualify what you find honestly, so effort goes to the opportunities you can actually win rather than to every notice that mentions your service type.
The mistake that costs the most
Relying on a portal alert for the word that matches your service. Alerts catch competitions, which is the minority of the regime, and they catch them at the point where preparation time has already gone. They do not catch commissioning intentions, market engagement, or a process C continuation approaching its review date, which is where the decisions are actually made.
Why this matters
Under the PSR the authority chooses the route, and the two routes that award without competition are invisible to anyone watching only for tenders. Visibility with commissioners ahead of a decision is worth more than submission quality after one, which is an uncomfortable finding for providers who have invested entirely in the latter.
Common questions
Where are PSR opportunities published?
Find a Tender carries notices including PSR transparency notices, and ICBs publish commissioning intentions, board papers and engagement exercises on their own sites. Submissions typically run through the commissioning portal the authority names, commonly Atamis in NHS commissioning.
What is a transparency notice?
A published notice setting out a selection decision under the PSR: the service, the provider, the process used and the reasoning. They are how the regime is made accountable, and reading them systematically tells you how your commissioners behave and which services are approaching a decision.
How far ahead can I see an opportunity coming?
Often a year or more, through commissioning intentions and board papers. Dental commissioning plans, for example, are published well ahead of the notices that follow them. Contract expiry dates from previous award notices give a second, independent read on timing.
Does market engagement actually influence who wins?
Under a regime where contracts can be awarded without competition, yes, materially. Market engagement is how an authority forms a view of who is capable. A provider absent from every engagement exercise is unlikely to be identified as the most suitable provider by an authority that has never dealt with it.
Should I still monitor Contracts Finder and Find a Tender?
Yes, both, alongside the ICB sources. Health care services in scope of the PSR and non-clinical services under the Procurement Act 2023 appear through different routes, and most healthcare providers buy or deliver across both.
Reviewed 14 September 2026. This page explains the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023 and the accompanying NHS England guidance. It is not legal advice, and a decision you intend to challenge should be reviewed by your own advisers inside the standstill period.
The rest of the regime
Start at the Provider Selection Regime overview, check what you need in place at NHS supplier eligibility, or see how this plays out in dental and patient transport.
Facing a PSR decision?
Tell us the service, the authority and where you are in the process. A specialist will give you a straight read on the route and what is realistically available to you.
Finding PSR Opportunities and Transparency Notices
Which service, which authority, and what stage are you at?