It is a question that has to be asked because I have noticed that NHS staff involved in commissioning new services are looking for cheaper alternatives than themselves or reduction in costs over a period of time when they know that inflation is increasing prices.
There is an us and them situation developing where the “us” are the ones who may find themselves ultimately just becoming too expensive.
We also did a bid where part of the feedback was “they expected a larger team” – as they only wanted to spend £50k for the year for a service to support over 70 smaller organisations, they were wanting to pay less than minimum wage for a team of 4:(