Market Engagement Events for the Procurement of Community based Clinical Diagnostics Services

NHS England is seeking to increase capacity of diagnostics in the NHS through the development of community diagnostics hubs. The configuration of such hubs in terms of services or facilities (or a combination of both) are likely to vary across ICS/STP footprints. NHS England would like to consider the scope of services and the potential models for delivery with interested parties to inform its procurement strategy.

The services to be procured will be based on recommendations of the Mike Richards review, which propose the following which are indicative, not exhaustive

• Imaging: Plain X-ray, ultrasound, CT and MRI +/- mammography and DEXA scanning
• Physiological measurements: A range of cardiorespiratory investigations including echocardiography, ECG and rhythm monitoring, blood pressure monitoring, spirometry, FeNO, lung function tests, simple field tests, sleep studies, oximetry, blood gas analysis
• Pathology: Phlebotomy, point of care testing (POCT), including blood gas analysis. Laboratory analysis of pathology samples (other than POCT) will be done elsewhere in the relevant pathology network.
• Endoscopy:
• Training facilities:

The key objective of the Procurement is to establish community based diagnostic hubs to provide highly effective elective diagnostic centres for conditions such as cancer, cardiac, respiratory, MSK, and other conditions as recommended by the Richards Review. . In response to the report, it is anticipated that such hubs will be commissioned at STP/ICS level, operating to support and increase existing local diagnostic capacity in line with predicted demand. Such arrangements will potentially be delivered via a national level Framework Agreement.

The Commissioners are seeking to engage with the market to gather the views of potential providers on various aspects of how the services should best be configured and organised. Potential providers are invited to provide their views and comments on the aspects of the service as outlined in the questionnaire.

If your organisation is interested in providing Community based Diagnostics services, attending the launch event and responding to the market engagement questionnaire will enable you to inform the commissioning of these services and future opportunities.

Please follow the link to the e-tendering procurement portal below; you will need to create an account if you are not already registered on the portal. It is anticipated that the tender opportunity will be published late April and will be accessible via this e-tendering procurement portal. uk.eusupply.com/login.asp ↗. The market engagement questions can be found by searching for Quote/Tender 43709.

Please note the deadline for the market engagement responses is 1700 on 20 March.

At this stage, this is purely a market engagement exercise. Any subsequent procurement will be advertised separately and all organisations wanting to participate will need to respond to the contract notice advertising the procurement when this is published.

The responses received during the market analysis exercise will not be taken into account in any future evaluation process as part of the formal procurement process but will be used to inform and finalise the Invitation to Tender (ITT) documentation. Additional information: Please note any data of list sizes quoted in this PIN notice are indicative and will be confirmed as part of the ITT documentation for the subsequent procurement.

The market engagement event is scheduled to take place over the month of April