General Dental Services for Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire

From April 2006 Local Health Board assumed full control of the budget for NHS Primary Care Dental Services and has a clear responsibility to secure or provide services for the people in its area to meet all reasonable requirements and provide out of hours services.

The aims of the service are:

• To provide access for the local population to NHS Dental Services
• To deliver appropriate, quality, efficient and cost-effective services within the mandatory and potential additional services framework of the Personal Dental Services (PDS) regulations and agreement and the Welsh Government (WG) Dental Contract Reform (DCR) programme and the associated GDS/PDS Contract Variation in respect of contract reform elements.
• To develop services in line with the Welsh Government and Hywel Dda University Health Board’s aim for Primary Care Dental provision to improve the oral health of the population and contribute to reduction in health inequalities
• To provide high quality General Dental Services and potentially additional enhanced services that meet the specific needs of diverse population groups within the Health Board (HB) area, including flexibility of appointment times.
• To establish a positive working relationship between the HB and other professional groups to facilitate and maximise service delivery
• To deliver services in a Multi-Disciplinary Team approach (MDT) aligned to the requirements of contract reform and following WG approach to develop and optimise the available skill mix.

To deliver NHS Dental Services in line with the annual interim/contract variation guidance issued by WG for the transition of service delivery under contract reform

Hywel Dda University Health Board (HDUHB) issued a tender ITT: itt_111135 - Provision of General Dental Services for South Pembrokeshire, Carmarthen, and South Ceredigion/North Pembrokeshire Border, on the Bravo eTenderWales system on 18th June 2024 with a return date of 22nd July 2024. A competitive tender exercise was initiated using the open tender procedure.

This tender included three (3) lots:

Lot 1 – South Pembrokeshire

Lot 2 - South Ceredigion-North Pembrokeshire Border

Lot 3 - Carmarthen

An advert was placed on Sell2Wales and published in accordance with the EU Procurement Contract Regulations (“PCR”) 2015. NWSSP Procurement Services, on behalf of HDUHB, undertook the tendering process. Two bids were received for lot three (3) Carmarthen from:

• Khan Dental Care
• Pentrepoeth Dental Practice (Gower Dental)

No bids were received for lot 1- South Pembrokeshire or lot 2 – South Ceredigion-North Pembrokeshire Border

Both bidders submitted bids which the evaluation panel felt were suitable to provide General Dental Services however both bids are proposed to be based in Carmarthen.

The dental team considered the no bid for South Pembrokeshire and concluded that priority is to provide access to services not necessarily location and propose to award contracts to both providers from a base in Carmarthen. Both contracts would have an equal contract size and an even split of patient cohorts from Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire however this would require patients from South Pembrokeshire needing to travel to Carmarthen. Subsequently, contracts were awarded in November 2024 Khan Dental Care and Pentrepoeth Dental Practice (Gower Dental).

One of the appointed providers has formally resigned their proportion of the awarded contract for Carmarthen and South Pembrokeshire.