Dental Commissioning and Contract Monitoring - Tendering, Procurement & Contracting

Hints and tips procurement paper; This briefing note sets out some of the key lessons learned by a number of PCTs that have undertaken procurement exercises for NHS dental services. Competitive tendering exercises have been highly successful in several respects in primary care dentistry as they have: enabled PCTs to re-commission lost services; secured improved access in specific localities (or for specific types of population) in line with local oral health needs assessment; improved quality; tested the local market and securing improved VFM, as measured by the PCT’s average £/UDA before and after the exercise. PCTs felt they had achieved improved value for money without a reduction in quality.

(Published February 2008, 4 pages)