Out of Hours Urgent Dental Treatment Service - Durham and Darlington

Out of hours dental treatment services are a critical and significant part of the local North Cumbria and North East, unscheduled urgent and emergency dental care clinical pathway.

These services offer the only means of accessing urgent and emergency dental care during out of hours weekday periods and across the full weekend/bank holiday extended periods.

Under Regulation 72 (1) Contracts and framework agreements may be modified without a new procurement procedure in any of the following cases: (c) where all of the following conditions are fulfilled: (i) the need for modification has been brought about by circumstances which a diligent contracting authority could not have foreseen; (ii) the modification does not alter the overall nature of the contract; (iii) any increase in price does not exceed 50% of the value of the original contract or framework agreement.

This contract award is required due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and subsequent impact upon operational delivery and business operations.

The current pandemic and events were not expected or foreseen by the contracting authority.

Attempts to mitigate risks identified in advance of procurement were undertaken.

There was an urgent need to ensure services are maintained for the patients' needs.

In light of the above, and taking into account a previous unsuccessful procurement, approval was given by the Commercial Executive Group of Arden and GEM CSU, for a 12 month direct award to be awarded, therefore allowing for delivery of Out of hours dental treatment services from 01 October 2020.