Gloucestershire Dental Treatment Hub

This notice is placed as a Prior Information Notice (PIN) to inform the market of NHS Gloucestershire Integrated Care Board's (ICB) (the Commissioner's), intention to commission dental access as part of a Centre of Dental Excellence (City Campus, Gloucester) and a Dental Access Centre (Quayside, Gloucester). The Commissioner would like to understand the level of provider interest in delivering these services.

Fundamentally this opportunity seeks to increase access to NHS dentistry in a part of the county where deprivation is greatest by working in partnership to commission 2 new bespoke primary care facilities in fit for purpose environments, incorporating flexible commissioning and workforce training.

A key aim of this opportunity is to provide NHS dental access in a Core 20 area. This will provide much needed dental care to a cohort of patients who struggle disproportionately with oral pain and disease, which negatively affects their health and wellbeing.

• NHS Gloucestershire ICB is seeking to secure a Prime Provider(s) who has the capability and capacity to deliver primary care dental services, in line with the specified requirements.
• There are likely to be two dental PDS contract procurements. The Dental Access Centre (Quayside) procurement is likely to be published in August 2025 and the procurement of access as part of the Dental Centre of Excellence (City Campus) procurement is likely to be published in Autumn 2025. Each contract will have a value of £1.2m per annum.
• The contract term for the Dental Access Centre (Quayside) is expected to commence in Spring/Summer 2026, and the Centre of Dental Excellence (City Campus) in Summer/Autumn 2026. Both contracts are likely to be for a period of a minimum of 10 years.

In partnership with other anchor organisations, the ICB has identified two potential Gloucester City centre sites for the delivery of these services, one for the Centre of Dental Excellence (City Campus) located at 3rd floor, City Campus, Northgate Street, Gloucester, GL1 1SQ and the other for the Dental Access Centre (Quayside) located at 1st Floor, Quayside House, Quayside Street, Gloucester, GL1 2TZ. Providers will be expected to lease these sites from the respective landlords for a term which mirrors the length of the contract.

• A Heads of Terms will be developed in advance of commissioning a service provider which sets out the expected terms and conditions between the owner of the building and the service provider/s. At both sites it is anticipated that the service provider/s would fund the fit out of the accommodation. The service provider would be expected to fund associated, recurrent revenue costs, for example servicing and maintenance; rent and rates; cleaning and lighting.
• There is an expectation that the provider is or becomes a postgraduate training practice and hosts foundation dentists. As part of the Centre of Dental Excellence, the University of Gloucestershire anticipates delivering Dental Nurse Cert HE; Dental Hygienist BSc and Dental Therapist BSc. The provider must form and maintain a mutually supportive collaborative relationship with the provider of undergraduate Dental Care Professionals (DCP) training who may share the Centre of Dental Excellence (CoDE). This will involve referral of student appropriate patients. No teaching or clinical supervision of undergraduate students is expected under this contract.
• Some of the space within the Centre of Dental Excellence will be shared with the University, for example the Decontamination Room. A Memorandum of Understanding for use of the shared space will need to be developed by successful bidder and the university.
• TUPE will not be applicable for this procurement process.

To allow potential providers to reflect on the proposed services, the Commissioner has provided early indicative information as part of this notice (located within the Atamis e-procurement portal) which includes:

1. Service specifications
2. Floor plans for each premises
3. Architecture data sheets for each premises
4. PDS contract

Please note all the above documents are in draft form and yet to be finalised.

The Commissioner welcomes your feedback on these documents via return of the market engagement questionnaire.

Details on how to access the market engagement questionnaire and early indicative information are contained within the 'VI.3. Additional information' section.

We kindly ask you to submit these by midday Thursday 17th July 2025.

The Commissioner has also included the PowerPoint slides and Q&A from the market engagement event that took place earlier this year in April / May 2025. Please note that there have been some changes to the ICB's commissioning intentions since this event took place. The changes have been reflected in the information in this PIN notice and the service specification.

This exercise is being carried out by NHS South, Central and West Commissioning Support Unit (SCW) on behalf of the Commissioner.