How to Become a Supplier to the NHS New Hospital Programme

The direct route onto the NHS New Hospital Programme now runs through the contractors who already hold the work. NHS England has awarded ten places on the Hospital 2.0 Alliance, the framework for the programme's hospital builds, refurbishments and ancillary works. Those firms let the packages underneath.

For a tier 2 or tier 3 supplier (you sell to the main contractor, or to the firms that sell to it), that means three jobs. Fit the standardized Hospital 2.0 components. Get onto those contractors' supply chains. Reach the people who choose suppliers while a scheme is still in design, because a tender notice usually arrives after the important choices are made.

The framework competition is over. The supply chain beneath it is still being put together, by a small number of people you can find by name and title.

What does the programme actually pay for?

It is buying hospitals: new builds, refurbishments of existing estate, and the ancillary works around them. The programme's 2025 to 2026 annual report says that in March 2026 it appointed 10 construction firms to the Hospital 2.0 Alliance, a multi-supplier framework covering that scope. In its own words, "The NHP is investing in 46 hospital schemes across England."

Hospital 2.0 is the standard design every scheme is built to. The same report says it is "applied to all schemes from wave 1 onwards". That changes the sale. A product that fits the standard design once can go into scheme after scheme, and a product that does not fit faces the same hard conversation on every one of them.

The report also describes the alliance as a long-term supply chain partnership instead of a string of one-off transactions. For a supplier, that is the line to act on. The contractors are building a supply chain they intend to keep.

One boundary first: this is about the construction supply chain. Selling consumables or medical equipment to hospitals that are already open runs through other channels, such as NHS Supply Chain, and the advice here does not apply there. Digital and technology suppliers have a separate track too: the programme has run pre-market engagement on Intelligent Hospital Capabilities such as smart scheduling, asset tracking and cyber security.

On the construction side, the programme's own starting point is the NHP Supplier Guide on CompeteFor. It is written for suppliers of all types and sizes who want to join the future supply chain, and it covers Hospital 2.0, what NHP will buy and how to engage. Read it before your first message to a contractor.

Which Hospital 2.0 Alliance contractors should you target first?

NHS England's March 2026 award notice says it concluded a competitive dialogue and awarded ten places on the framework. It intends, though it does not guarantee, that every alliance contractor receives at least one call-off contract, meaning an actual scheme awarded under the framework.

In July 2026 the government announced the first eleven Hospital 2.0 partnerships between NHS trusts and construction firms. The firms it names include GRAHAM, Sacyr UK, Laing O'Rourke, Skanska, Bovis Construction, Integrated Health Projects, Morgan Sindall Construction, Kier Construction, Willmott Dixon Construction and DRAGADOS.

Eleven partnerships and ten named firms do not map one to one, so check the announcement for the exact pairings.

Either way, the programme's main buyers fit on one page: an account list of about ten companies, each with a handful of people who matter to you. That is the opposite of how I usually start outbound, with a first list of 20,000+ contacts. Here the list is short, so every name on it has to be the right one.

A Tier 1 contractor replies when the message is well aimed and carries proof. My evidence is a UK maker of fall-protection equipment for construction sites, whose email and LinkedIn prospecting my team ran for two years. The totals were 200+ sales calls booked and 600+ leads across 24 countries, and AECOM, bp, Skanska, Doka, Altrad and Saipem were among those who replied. Skanska is also on the Hospital 2.0 list above.

Which contractor comes first depends on where you already stand. My first step is always the client's own customer list: who bought before, then who looks like those buyers. Here that means opening your customer list before you open the press release. The longer version of that check is in how to pick the right market before outbound.

One tool I would leave out. Intent data needs a big market to show signals on enough accounts, and when the market is this narrow my team skips it and puts the effort into an offer that fits every account on the list.

Who actually decides who gets work on a hospital scheme?

Five groups sit above any package you might win, and each decides something different.

The NHS England row comes from the award notice above. The trusts' role comes from the July 2026 announcement, which keeps trusts accountable for hospitals that serve their local communities.

The obvious first call is the trust, because its name is on the building. The trust matters for timing, but the contractor's supply chain and design people are the ones contracted to deliver the standard design, so that is where most product and subcontract choices land.

To find the right titles, go backwards. Before my team builds any target list, I ask the client to go through their recent projects and name the person who signed off each purchase. Then I search only for the titles that niche really uses, never a broad "manager" filter. If a contractor's package manager bought your last three jobs, that is your title.

When do schemes start, and why does early contact beat tender watching?

The programme runs in waves. The government's plan for implementation says it will use consecutive waves of investment, and each wave sets construction start dates for its schemes over a 5-year period. The review outcome lets the programme plan on £15 billion of total spend per 5-year Spending Review period.

In its January 2026 update, the National Audit Office said the reset covers 41 hospital schemes in four waves over the next 20 years. An additional five schemes were already complete and open at the January 2025 reset, which is how the 41 and the 46 fit together.

Scheme counts can change, so build your target list from the latest published scheme list. The NAO added that the timing of waves 1 to 3 depends on final business cases being delivered and approved, so dates can move.

Two details in the plan matter most for suppliers. Contractors are told they are signing up for a rolling programme of several hospitals, which is why they build lasting supply chains. And schemes in later waves still do pre-construction work, such as business case development and planning permission, long before anyone is on site.

At any moment, schemes sit in one of three positions, and each needs a different move:

Tender watching only shows you the first row. By the time a package appears, many of the product choices in the second row have usually been made, and you were not in the room.

That timing is built into how projects run. The RIBA Plan of Work splits a building project into 8 stages, from briefing through design to construction and use. NBS explains that specification decisions are captured in an outline specification during design stages 2 and 3. That is where your product gets in or stays out.

Some markets just decide slowly. A hospital programme that runs on business cases, approvals and 5-year waves moves at the buyer's rhythm, and that pace is no verdict on your offer. Slow is not dead. The conversation you start now is what puts you on the list when a package lands.

What standard components should product makers fit?

The annual report says the programme used the Product Platform Rulebook methodology, which it calls a first in public sector buying, to standardize and aggregate demand. So far the standardized systems cover four families: facades, doors, partitions, and M&E (mechanical and electrical) systems.

If you make one of those products, read the Rulebook itself. The Construction Innovation Hub publishes it as an open-access guide that helps clients, contractors, manufacturers and product suppliers build the capability to develop and deploy product platforms. Its launch release explains that it sets Rules and Principles for product platforms, and the Principles are requirements applied together with the Rules.

Aggregated demand has two sides for a manufacturer. One decision now covers many hospitals, so a single approval can carry across many schemes. It also tends to mean fewer decisions in total, taken earlier than a one-off building would take them.

You can see how this works. Under Hospital 2.0, designers get a set of 3D components from a Technical Library and drop them into their site designs. Mott MacDonald says the programme will consult manufacturers to test whether the kit's components can be mass produced. That consultation is the door a manufacturer should be knocking on.

If you make a product in one of those four families, prove three things in this order: it fits the standard, you can supply it again and again across schemes, and you have done healthcare work before. In our campaigns, the client's past projects and results go inside the message itself.

Here is a worked example for a made-up maker of hygienic doorsets, written to a contractor's design manager on a first-wave scheme. The company and its numbers are invented to show the shape.

Hi Sarah, I saw your team is delivering one of the first-wave Hospital 2.0 schemes.

We make hygienic doorsets for clinical areas, built to repeat across standard room layouts.

Last year we supplied 300 sets into two acute hospital refurbishments through a main contractor, both handed over on schedule, and our plant can double that volume.

Would 15 minutes make sense before your door package is scoped?

What each line does:

1. Line one names her own scheme, so it cannot be mistaken for a mass mailing.
2. Line two ties the product to the standard design, the first filter she applies.
3. Line three carries proof: the contractor route, delivery and capacity, with a number in it.
4. The ask is a short conversation before scoping, never a quote. Message one asks for 15 minutes and nothing else. Pitch the doorset that early and it gets ignored like every other catalog in her inbox.

How do tier 2 and tier 3 suppliers get onto schemes early?

Start with what the official route did. The February 2025 framework notice told bidders to register with the NHP e-Procurement Portal, open the NHP Non Disclosure Agreement project and sign the NDA before they could see the selection questionnaire and the Reading Room.

That route gave access to procurement documents, nothing more, and it served the competition for main contractor places that has since been awarded. For a tier 2 or tier 3 supplier today, the working route is through the alliance contractors and their package holders.

A practical entry sequence before packages are let:

1. Match each scheme to its alliance contractor and partner trust, and note which wave and stage it is in.
2. Ask your existing contacts at any of those contractors how suppliers join their approved list for health work, and complete whatever prequalification they use.
3. Reach the design team on schemes still in planning, using the proof format above.
4. Reach tier 2 firms already working on site if you supply at tier 3.
5. Keep in touch through the wave, because the next scheme on that contractor's list will use the same standard.

Expect to be checked before anyone replies properly. Your website, your LinkedIn profile and your case studies are being read before the first call. A ghost profile sinks even a polished message, while a strong profile carries an average one. Before you push anyone toward a meeting, it also pays to qualify before booking a meeting, so your sales time goes to people with live schemes.

What should the first 30 days of outreach look like?

A month will not sign a framework supplier. What it can do is start real conversations with a ten-company market. The plan should say so from day one.

• Week 1: The sender's LinkedIn profile shows healthcare and tier 1 work. The list holds named people at each target contractor and design team.
• Week 2: A LinkedIn connection request with a one-line note about their scheme.
• Week 3: An email that follows the LinkedIn touch and carries the proof.
• After that: Follow-ups with real time between them, each adding something new. The reply most often arrives on the third follow-up.

The case for that order is here: run LinkedIn and email as one sequence. If you would rather have a senior team run it, that is what our LinkedIn outreach service does.

Set the month-one goal correctly. I measure the first month in conversations started, never in calls booked, because calls come out of conversations. A design manager who says "not yet, call me when the design is further along" is still a win.

Then be patient with the numbers. First meetings can come inside 30 days of launch. The deals behind those meetings often close four or more months later, because B2B sales cycles of 6, 9 or 12 months are common.

Give outbound at least 3 months so you can learn from the replies and adjust. Around 6 months is usual before it runs well. On a hospital programme, judge month one by who knows your name.

What is the simplest checklist before you contact the market?

Run these before the first message goes out:

1. Buyer check. You can name, for each target contractor, the supply chain lead and at least one design or package lead.
2. Title check. Every title on the list matches a role that bought from you before, with no generic "manager" padding.
3. Fit check. You can say in one sentence which Hospital 2.0 system your product or service sits in, or which tier 2 package buys from you.
4. Proof check. You have one healthcare or comparable tier 1 project with a number in it: units, value, schedule or handover date.
5. Capacity check. You can state how much you can supply per year across several schemes at once.
6. Relationship check. You have listed which alliance contractors you already supply on any sector, and those come first.
7. Stage check. Each scheme on your list is tagged on site, planning or later wave, so the message matches the moment.
8. List check. The list has been opened and cleaned by a person; here is how to audit a lead list before sending.

If item 3 or 4 fails, fix it first. Copy cannot rescue a weak fit or missing proof. Then send.

Want to supply the New Hospital Programme and would like help with your first 30 days? Book a call, or send me a question first.