Solution
Public tenders in health and social care
When a Swedish municipality or region buys health and social care under the Public Procurement Act (LOU), much is decided before quality is even assessed: without the right IVO permit, a management system or references that are similar enough, the bid is out. Procura reads the criteria in every advertised tender and compares them with your profile, so you see which contracts you qualify for before you start writing.
Which criteria are most common in a health and social care tender?
Under LOU chapter 14, section 1, qualification criteria may only concern three things: suitability to pursue the professional activity, economic and financial standing, and technical and professional ability. They must be proportionate to the contract. Within those limits, the same types of criteria come back when municipalities and regions buy, for example, LSS homes, daily activities, HVB places (HVB, hem för vård eller boende, residential care homes) or staffing of nurses. LSS is the Act concerning Support and Service for Persons with Certain Functional Impairments:
| Criteria | What it usually means | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|
| IVO permit | A permit from IVO (Inspektionen för vård och omsorg, the Health and Social Care Inspectorate) for the service being procured, for example a residence with special service under LSS, or an HVB. | The permit covers a specific service. Check that your permit covers exactly the service and target group being procured, and when the tender documents say it must be in place. |
| Management system | A management system for systematic quality work under SOSFS 2011:9, often with a description or procedures attached. | The regulation already applies to the business. Read what the tender documents want attached and whether the description covers the service being procured. |
| Licence to practise | For staffing and health care: licensed staff, whom the employer checks in the National Board of Health and Welfare's register (the HOSP register). | Assistant nurse (undersköterska) has been a protected professional title since 1 July 2023. Check whether the tender documents require proof for the staff already in the bid. |
| Criminal record check | An extract from the criminal records register for staff working with children, for example at an HVB for children or in LSS services for children. | Act (2007:171) and Act (2010:479) govern the check. The latter also covers contractors and agency staff. |
| Economic standing | A minimum annual turnover or a certain credit rating. | As a main rule, the turnover criterion may be at most twice the estimated contract value (LOU chapter 14, section 4). |
| References | Similar contracts in nature and scale, often with the buyer's contact details. | For services, the authority may go back up to three years (LOU chapter 15, section 11). |
On top of that come conditions that apply during the contract rather than at qualification, for example staffing, reporting and follow up. They rarely decide whether the bid is considered, but they affect your costing. Read more about the difference in the guide to mandatory criteria.
Which services require an IVO permit?
Under SoL (2025:400) chapter 26, section 1 (SoL is the Social Services Act, socialtjänstlagen), a private company may not run certain services on a professional basis without a permit. They include supported housing, sheltered housing, HVB, special forms of housing for older people and for people with disabilities, and home care (hemtjänst), which has required a permit since 1 January 2019. Under LSS section 23, a permit is also required for several LSS services, among them personal assistance, short stays away from home, residences with special service and daily activities.
Municipalities and regions need no permit for their own services, but a private provider does. IVO then vets, among other things, the owners and management. That is why the authority often sets the permit as a criterion when the contract concerns a service that requires one.
Why do so many health and social care bids fail on the mandatory criteria?
A care provider spends most of its time on what is evaluated: ways of working, staffing, quality and price. The qualification criteria often sit in a separate section or in the administrative terms, and they are read last. By then it is too late. A bid that does not meet a qualification criterion is never assessed on price or quality, however well prepared it is.
The most common causes are simple: an IVO permit that covers a different service or target group than the one being procured, a reference more than three years old, a turnover criterion just above last year's figure, or a reference that is not similar enough in nature or scale. See also common tender mistakes.
What does a Procura verdict look like for a care provider?
Procura is a Swedish service that shows suppliers which public tenders they qualify for and, where the price has been published, what similar contracts were awarded for. You enter your permits, your management system, your turnover, your reference contracts and your staffing once. Procura then reads live tenders from TED and Swedish notice databases, extracts the hard criteria and gives each tender one of three verdicts: qualified, qualified with gaps or disqualified. The criterion that stops you is always named.
Example. The company, the municipality and the tender below are made up and only show how a verdict is built.
| Criteria in the tender documents | The profile | Assessment |
|---|---|---|
| IVO permit for a residence with special service for adults under LSS, at the tender deadline | Permit granted in 2022 for a residence with special service for adults | Met |
| Management system under SOSFS 2011:9, description attached | A management system exists, but the description dates from 2021 and does not mention the LSS service | Gap that can be fixed |
| Turnover of at least SEK 15 million | SEK 21 million in the latest year | Met |
| Two similar contracts in the past three years | Own group home since 2022 and a municipal contract 2023–2025 | Met |
The verdict is qualified with gaps, and the gap is the description of the management system. Had the permit instead only covered residences for children and young people, it would not have covered the contract, and the verdict would have been disqualified with the permit criterion named. Hard criteria like these are decided by fixed rules that point to the lines in the profile. AI is only used for criteria that are unclearly worded, and it can never change a rule based fail.
What have similar health and social care contracts been awarded for?
Where the price has been published, Procura shows what comparable contracts were awarded for, who won and how many bids came in. Every price range shows how many of the awards published a price and how large the sample is. If the data is too thin, no figures are shown at all. It is guidance based on published awards, not a recommended price.
Two things matter especially in health and social care. Framework agreements, for example for staffing, often state an estimated or maximum value rather than what is actually called off. And individual prices, such as hourly rates, can be kept confidential under the Public Access to Information and Secrecy Act (OSL) chapter 31, section 16, so some awards have no price at all. Read more on the page about historical award prices (in Swedish).
When is a health and social care tender above the threshold?
Many health and social care services count as social and other specific services under LOU Annex 2, including staffing of nurses and doctors. From 1 January 2026 the threshold for them is SEK 8,513,250 excluding VAT. Above it, LOU chapter 19 applies, and the tender is advertised on TED.
Below the threshold, the authority may award the contract without a notice, because since 1 February 2022 the direct award limit for these services has been as high as the threshold. So not every health and social care contract is advertised, and what is never advertised no monitoring service can find. See the glossary on thresholds.
Procura is currently invite only. If you want to see how your own profile stands against live health and social care tenders, you can book a demo.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need an IVO permit to submit a bid?
It depends on the service. The law requires a permit to run, on a professional basis, among other things HVB, supported housing, special forms of housing and home care (SoL (2025:400) chapter 26, section 1) and several LSS services (LSS section 23). When the contract concerns such a service, the authority can set the permit as a criterion. Some tender documents want the permit in place at the tender deadline, others at the latest when the contract starts, so read exactly how the criterion is worded.
Is home care included?
Usually not. Home care is mostly bought through systems of choice under LOV (the Act on System of Choice in the Public Sector), and a system of choice is not a procurement. LOV contracts are advertised on the Swedish National Agency for Public Procurement's service Hitta LOV-uppdrag (Find LOV contracts), not on TED. Procura reads tenders under LOU from TED and Swedish notice databases. When a municipality instead procures and advertises home care under LOU, the tender is included.
How old may our reference contracts be?
For services, the authority may ask for references up to three years back (LOU chapter 15, section 11). The authority can choose a shorter window, and in some cases it can accept older references to ensure competition. What the tender documents say applies.
May we call our staff assistant nurses if they have no proof?
Assistant nurse (undersköterska) has been a protected professional title since 1 July 2023. Anyone who was then permanently employed as an assistant nurse may use the title without proof until 30 June 2033. Check how the tender documents word the criteria for staff, and whether the title is enough or proof must be shown.
Can we bid even if we do not meet the turnover criterion on our own?
Often yes, by relying on another company's capacity, for example a parent company or a partner in a joint bid. Check which commitments and certificates the tender documents require for that.