Miscellaneous medical devices and products

Description

This notice relates to the purchase of surgeons gowns for use across Northern Ireland Health and Social Care. This notice relates to the purchase of surgeons gowns. The contracting authority has utilised Regulation 32(2)(c) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 (as amended) which provides a derogation from the obligation to competitively tender for a contract for goods or services over the EU Threshold where the works, supplies or services are required as per the below: ‘(c) Insofar as is strictly necessary where, for reasons of extreme urgency brought about by events unforeseeable by the contracting authority, the time limits for the open or restricted procedures or competitive procedures with negotiation cannot be complied with.’ Regulation 32(2)(c) has been utilised in this instance due to the following rationale: 1) The item(s) are required to assist the contracting authority to respond to the impact of Covid-19 immediately, addressing the public health risks and disruption to services which would otherwise be incurred without them; 2) The Covid-19 pandemic is so novel that the extreme urgency of the situation was unforeseeable by the contracting authority. Ordinarily existing contractual arrangements and emergency stockpiles can be relied upon in such instances, however, in this case such provisions have proven insufficient to meet the scale of the additional demand for these items; 3) A procurement exercise to establish a new contractual arrangement would not be feasible given the time constraints, making it impossible to undertake a new procurement exercise or to access other commercial agreements.