Official UK procurement notice
8-bed female-only Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
Authority: Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionThe service required is an 8-bed female-only Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) providing specialist 24-hour inpatient care for adult women (18+) experiencing acute and severe mental illness whose level of risk, behavioural disturbance, or clinical acuity cannot be safely managed within a standard acute mental health ward. The service will serve patients across the Thames Valley footprint and provide rapid assessment, intensive multidisciplinary treatment, enhanced observation, physical healthcare, psychological and trauma-informed interventions, and active discharge planning from admission.<br/>The service must deliver safe, gender-responsive, recovery-focused care within a therapeutic environment, supporting women with complex mental health needs while reducing reliance on out-of-area placements. The provider will be required to demonstrate robust clinical governance, appropriate staffing and skill mix, effective pathway integration, and measurable improvements in patient outcomes, safety, experience, and timely step-down to less intensive services
CPV: Health services
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1This is a Provider Selection Regime (PSR) Intended Approach NoticePlanned
This is a Provider Selection Regime (PSR) Intended Approach Notice. The awarding of this contract is subject to the Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023. For the avoidance of doubt, the provisions of the Procurement Act 23 do not apply to this contract.<br/>This Intended Approach Notice is being published in line with Regulation 10 - under The Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime - PSR) Regulations 2023. (The Most Suitable Provider Process) is being used to commission this service.<br/>This will be published for at least 14 calendar days as per the requirements of the Provider Selection Regime 2023.<br/>This is to enable providers to approach the Trust and express their interest in being considered as the 'most suitable provider'. Deadline for expression of interest is 17:00 Friday 2/10/2026. Additional information: The successful MSP will have to satisfy the Basic Selection Criteria and demonstrate how they meet the Key Criteria as listed within this notice.<br/>The Authority will select the MSP based on the following stages:<br/>1) The Provider will have to satisfy the Basic Selection Criteria in accordance with regulation 19 of the PSR<br/>Suitability (Paas/Fail)<br/>
- Ability to provide a female-only adult PICU model with appropriate environmental, staffing and safeguarding arrangement with potential start of no later than 1st December 2026. <br/>
- Provision to be within the Thames Valley footprint, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire to support patients and their families to access care within a maximum of a 30-mile radius from their NHS inpatient healthcare base and care teams. <br/>
- CQC registration and regulatory status appropriate to the proposed service.<br/>
- Compliance with Mental Health Act, Mental Capacity Act, safeguarding, medicines management, rapid tranquillisation, restrictive practice and physical healthcare requirements.<br/>
- Ability to provide safe staffing, including enhanced observation capacity for up to 30 days where clinically indicated and agreed through the contractual mechanism.<br/>
- Agreement to provide the full contract quality schedule, monthly dashboard, narrative exception reporting and participation in commissioner-led quality review meetings.<br/>
- Evidence of robust clinical governance, incident reporting, safeguarding escalation, patient safety learning and serious incident management arrangements.<br/>2) The Authority will then assess providers who satisfy the Basic Selection Criteria against the Key Criteria as set out below to determine the MSP.<br/>The criteria are ranked in priority order:-<br/>Quality and Innovation<br/>Integration, collaboration, and service sustainability<br/>Improving access, reducing health inequalities and facilitating choice value<br/>Value<br/>Social Value
Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust buys Health services (CPV 8510), and who usually turns up
Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Health services (CPV 8510) →
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.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered. The market figure counts awards delivered in South East England.
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered in the region where that award was delivered.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 68 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.
The market share is a minimum: 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 bid16%
2–328%
4–635%
7+21%
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 estimate29%
Within ±2%66%
Above estimate5%
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 #1This is a Provider Selection Regime (PSR) Intended Approach NoticeCPV 8510Published estimate£5.3m
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 68 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid16%
2–328%
4–635%
7+21%
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
- CELEX · 32014L0024 Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (Directive 2014/24/EU)
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Yes (GPA)
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 17 Sept 2026, 17:09 BST
- Last source update
- 17 Sept 2026, 17:09 BST
- Authority reference
W247478- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-088426- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-0774dcFind a Tender
How it was run
Official noticeTender documents are also served through a separate tool: https://atamis-1928.my.site.com/s/Welcome ↗
- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
17 Sept 2026 → 13 Nov 2026 · 2 dates- Notice published41 days ago17 Sept 2026, 17:09 BST
- Today28 Oct 2026
- Tender notice expectedin 15 days13 Nov 2026
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
Official documents & specifications
Official links; attachments are not copiedNo document links were published on the notice.