The Procurement Process

Often the procurement for a supervised toothbrushing programme can be a long and sometimes complex process so it is important to identify the organisation or individual leading the procurement early on. They can then advise on the requirements, including what documents need to be developed (e.g. Equality Impact Assessment), where the tender needs to be advertised, for how long and the time needed to review bids.  

 

It is also important to plan the timeframe for when the tender will go live, when the contract will be awarded, the duration of the mobilisation period and consequently when the nurseries/schools will start brushing! In most recent cases a funded mobilisation period is included to recognise the time it will take the provider to set up the programme in new nurseries/schools. The duration of the mobilisation period needs to consider the size of the supervised toothbrushing programmes .