NHS Dental Contract Tenders for Dental Practices
NHS dental contracts are commissioned by integrated care boards under the Provider Selection Regime, not the Procurement Act 2023. Practices bid for GDS, PDS or mandatory dental services contracts measured in units of dental activity, through ICB notices published on Find a Tender and portals such as Atamis.
Key facts at a glance
- Who commissions it
- Integrated care boards (ICBs), which took on dental commissioning from NHS England under delegated arrangements
- Which rules apply
- The Health Care Services (Provider Selection Regime) Regulations 2023, in force since 1 January 2024, not the Procurement Act 2023
- Contract types
- General Dental Services (GDS), Personal Dental Services (PDS) and mandatory dental services, plus dental access centres and centres of dental excellence
- How volume is measured
- Units of dental activity (UDAs) per annum, with the contract value expressed as a UDA rate and an annual financial envelope
- Where notices appear
- Find a Tender, ICB commissioning intentions and PSR transparency notices, with submissions usually through Atamis
- Typical term
- Five to ten years, frequently with extension options, which is why one submission sets a practice up for a decade
Why NHS dental tenders are not ordinary public tenders
Dental services are health care services. That puts them inside the Provider Selection Regime and outside the Procurement Act 2023, which changes almost everything about how a practice should approach them. There is no standard selection questionnaire to fill in, no fixed two-stage process, and no guarantee that a competition will be run at all.
Instead the ICB chooses one of five PSR processes. It can award directly to an existing provider, identify a single most suitable provider without competition, or run a competitive process. A practice that only watches for open competitions will never see the majority of the dental work being placed.
The practical consequence is that positioning matters before the notice appears. We cover the mechanics of each route on our Provider Selection Regime hub.
What ICBs are actually buying in 2026
Access. Dental commissioning plans across England in 2026 and 2027 are written around new patient appointments and unmet need, not around clinical excellence in the abstract. East Midlands ICBs, for example, published dental commissioning plans for 2026/27 whose stated objective is agreed levels of dental access and new NHS dental appointments, to be advertised under PSR notices.
Recent procurements show the shape clearly. Gloucestershire ICB tendered a PDS contract for a centre of dental excellence with service commencing by 1 September 2026 and a maximum financial envelope of £1.2M per annum. Mandatory dental services contracts on the Isle of Wight and in Bognor and Littlehampton were let for 21,000 UDAs per annum with commencement between January and July 2026.
A response that leads with clinical quality and treats access as a secondary paragraph is answering a question the ICB did not ask. The winning responses put patient numbers, appointment availability, urgent slots and geography at the front.
Where dental practices lose marks
Four failures account for most of the gap between a practice that scores and one that does not. The first is capacity stated rather than evidenced: a claim of surgery availability with no chair-time calculation behind it, no clinician headcount and no recruitment plan for the posts not yet filled.
The second is mobilisation. ICBs have been burned by contracts that start and then do not deliver. A mobilisation plan that shows the practice seeing patients from day one, with the premises, equipment, CQC position and workforce all resolved before the start date, is worth more marks than any amount of description of clinical technique.
The third is UDA deliverability. If the volume offered is beyond what the practice can realistically deliver at the stated rate, the submission is exposed on both value and sustainability. That is a bid or no bid conversation to have honestly before writing starts.
The fourth is access inequalities. The PSR criteria explicitly include improving access and reducing health inequalities. Most dental responses treat this as a social value box. It is a scored clinical commissioning criterion, and it should be answered with local data.
Before you bid: is the practice even eligible
A new or newly expanded practice hits a set of gates before the bid becomes the problem: CQC registration for the regulated activities, the ODS code, indemnity, performers list positions for each clinician, and the Data Security and Protection Toolkit. We deal with these on the NHS supplier eligibility page, because a practice that fails a gate is disqualified before its answers are read.
CQC in particular tightened up from 9 February 2026, rejecting incomplete or inaccurate registration applications at the point of submission rather than coming back with questions. A missing document is now a refusal, and a refusal is a timeline problem measured in months, not weeks.
How Glaxtons works on a dental submission
We qualify first. You get an honest read on whether the UDA volume, the rate and the term are deliverable for your practice before you commit management time to a submission. If the answer is that they are not, we say so, and we tell you which lot or which ICB would suit you better.
Then we write to the PSR criteria using your evidence: your chair time, your clinician mix, your access commitments, your local population data. We build the mobilisation plan, handle the portal submission, and leave you with a dental bid library so the next ICB notice starts at sixty percent rather than zero.
If a notice is already open and the clock is short, go straight to urgent bid support or call 020 3668 5488.
Who should apply?
This page is written for the organisations that bid for NHS dental contracts:
Frequently asked questions
Can a dental practice bid for an NHS contract without an existing one?
Yes. ICBs commission new dental capacity as well as replacing existing provision, and a practice with no current NHS contract can bid. You will need CQC registration for the regulated activities, performers list positions for your clinicians and a credible mobilisation plan showing patients seen from the start date.
Are NHS dental contracts covered by the Procurement Act 2023?
No. Dental services are health care services in scope of the Provider Selection Regime, which came into force on 1 January 2024. The ICB chooses between three direct award processes, the most suitable provider process and the competitive process, and must publish transparency notices for its decision.
What is a UDA and why does it matter in a tender?
A unit of dental activity is how NHS dental volume is measured. A tender will state UDAs per annum and a financial envelope, which gives you an implied UDA rate. Whether that rate is deliverable at your cost base, with your clinician mix and chair time, is the single most important bid or no bid question in dental.
How do I find NHS dental tenders before they close?
Monitor Find a Tender, your ICB commissioning intentions and dental commissioning plans, and PSR transparency notices, which flag a route before an award is made. Many ICBs publish intentions a year ahead. Waiting for a competitive notice means missing everything let by direct award or most suitable provider.
How long does an NHS dental contract run?
Commonly five to ten years, often with extension options. Recent examples include contracts with an initial term and extensions taking total value well beyond the base figure. That length is why the submission is worth doing properly: one bid sets the practice for a decade.
What does dental bid support cost?
We work to fixed fees agreed before any work starts, scoped to the contract and the deadline. Glaxtons holds a 93% success rate across more than 500 submissions between 2022 and 2025, with over £500M in contracts won. Call 020 3668 5488 for a straight answer on scope and price.
Open and upcoming framework deadlines
No NHS framework is open to dental practices right now. Dental is commissioned by ICBs under the Provider Selection Regime rather than through national frameworks, so watch ICB commissioning intentions and transparency notices instead.
See every tracked framework deadlineBidding for an NHS dental contract
Send us the ICB notice. We will tell you whether the UDA volume and rate are deliverable for your practice before you spend a day on it, and write the submission if they are. Call 020 3668 5488.