RM6399 Lot 7 of 10
RM6399 Lot 7: Health and Social Care
Consultancy to support the strategic planning and operational improvement of health, social care and community services, from options and recommendations through to implementation and delivery. Part of the £5 billion excluding VAT (£6 billion including VAT) Consultancy and Professional Services framework, which replaces RM6309 Management Consultancy Framework Four (MCF4).
Submissions close 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026 (32 days remaining). Clarification questions close 3pm on Thursday 22 October 2026.
Lot 7 at a glance
- Framework
- RM6399 Consultancy and Professional Services
- Buyer
- Government Commercial Agency
- Submissions close
- 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026
- Clarifications close
- 3pm on Thursday 22 October 2026
- Estimated lot value
- £300 million excluding VAT
- Award criteria
- Quality 90%, price 10%
- Call-off cap
- None stated in the notice
- Term
- 24 June 2027 to 23 June 2031 (estimated), four years
- Suppliers
- Maximum 500 across all ten lots
- Portal
- CCS/GCA BravoSolution (Jaggaer)
- Scope cues from the notice
- Health system and NHS strategy, integrated care planning, clinical service redesign, adult and children's social care improvement, community services, population health and the operational improvement of providers and commissioners.
How Lot 7 is scored
Award criteria as published on Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-087183. Confirm the question set and sub-weightings in the ITT on the portal.
Quality 90 percent, price 10 percent. The notice records both assessment lines on Lot 7 as quality type, which looks like a drafting quirk rather than a different model, so treat it as the same 90 and 10 split as the other specialist lots and confirm in the ITT. Health evaluators are reading for clinical and operational credibility, meaning named clinicians and improvement leads with NHS and local authority experience.
Who should bid this lot
Health and care consultancies, NHS improvement specialists, social care improvement advisers, clinical service redesign firms, population health and analytics consultancies, and the health practices of the larger firms. The buyers include integrated care boards, NHS trusts, NHS England, councils as social care authorities and the Department of Health and Social Care, so the evidence base needs to span commissioners and providers.
The notice flags every RM6399 lot as particularly suitable for SMEs and VCSEs, and caps the framework at 500 suppliers in total. The general rule is to bid the lots you can evidence rather than the lots you would like to hold. Evaluators score depth of evidence per lot, and firms that bid two or three lots properly consistently outperform those that spread thin across six.
What actually scores
Service redesigns with the waiting list, length of stay, readmission or cost outcome stated. Social care improvement work with the CQC or Ofsted outcome, the placement cost effect or the reablement result. Integrated care planning with the system and the decision named. Clinically qualified or NHS-experienced named leads, and a clear account of how the client's own improvement capability was built.
The mistake that loses marks on this lot
Writing health evidence without health outcomes. A consultancy that supported a trust's recovery programme will describe governance, workstreams and reporting. The evaluator wants the 18 week position before and after, the financial recovery delivered against plan and the regulator's view. Without those, the submission reads as process, and process scores poorly against competitors who state the outcome.
Lot 7 questions
How does RM6399 Lot 7 relate to the Health Systems Support Framework?
They overlap. HSSF is the NHS England route for health system support and RM6399 Lot 7 is the GCA route for health and social care consultancy available to NHS bodies, councils and central government alike. Many buyers will have both available. A firm serious about NHS consultancy should hold a place on both where it can, and should treat Lot 7 as the route that also reaches local authority social care.
Is social care consultancy really in scope?
Yes. The lot title is health and social care, the description names social care and community services, and the customer list includes every council type. Adult and children's social care improvement, commissioning support and market shaping are all consultancy a council can buy through Lot 7.
Who evaluates Lot 7 bids?
The GCA runs the evaluation, but the quality criteria for a health and social care lot are written for evaluators with sector knowledge. Assume your clinical and operational claims will be read by someone who has worked in the NHS or a council, and write to that reader.
Lot values, weightings and the timetable were taken from Find a Tender notice 2026/S 000-087183 and last reviewed on 6 October 2026. The ITT on the CCS/GCA BravoSolution (Jaggaer) portal is the only authority on the questions, the word counts and the conditions of participation, so confirm them there before you plan.
Bidding RM6399 Lot 7?
Submissions close 3pm on Monday 9 November 2026. Tell us which lots you are considering and what evidence you hold, and a director will come back the same working day with a straight view on whether the bid is winnable and what it would take.