Published date: 27 September 2017

Closed opportunity - This means that the contract is currently closed. The buying department may be considering suppliers that have already applied, or no suitable offers were made.


Closing: 27 October 2017

Contract summary

Industry

  • Test tubes - 33192500

Location of contract

Any region

Value of contract

£100,000

Procurement reference

tender_153831/621214

Published date

27 September 2017

Closing date

27 October 2017

Contract start date

1 July 2018

Contract end date

30 June 2021

Contract type

Supply contract

Procedure type

Open procedure

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No


Description

Introduction and Background
1.1 The NHSBT (NHS Blood and Transplant) is a Special Health Authority responsible for the provision of blood components and tissues and a range of associated specialist laboratory and patient therapeutic services to hospitals in England and North Wales.

1.2 Within theManufacturing and Logistics (M&L) Directorate of the Authority, the Testing function performs a wide range of testing services. These include the large-scale blood grouping and microbiological screening of blood and tissue donations. Needs standard paragraph from Neil Phillips adding here

1.3 Currently the NHSBT has 2 testing sites throughout England at which just over 1.5 million blood and tissue donations are tested for a range of microbiology markers each year. The 2 sites are based at Filton (Bristol), and Manchester.
Orders and deliveries against any contract would be from several locations throughout England.

1.4 When each donation is bled there are also a minimum of 3 x 6mL sample tubes taken into K2 EDTA tubes, which have colour coded caps for identification purposes. Tubes are of the evacuation type which allows the safe and sterile transfer of blood without having to remove the cap. One is bled for blood grouping (purple cap), one for nucleic acid testing (yellow cap), and one for the serological screening of microbiological agents (red cap). An NHSBT unique bar-code label is affixed to each tube at the donor's bed over a pre-existing blank manufacturer's label, and the samples are then transported to the testing site.

1.5 There are also selective tests done on some donors that will require additional tubes such as the white top EDTA tube, and also smaller 4 mL EDTA tubes for haematological and Quality Monitoring investigations, one of which is a K3 EDTA tube.

1.6 Future options that may be considered to be supportive of future innovation within the timeframe of the contract are:
a) to change one of the three main tubes to a dry tube (enhanced clot retraction) for serum rather than K2 EDTA
b) to change one of the three main tubes to 9mL rather than 6mL
c) to change one of the three main tubes to a gel separation tube.
d) to change the colour coding of the caps
e) to have different colour coded inserts (coloured rings)within the caps for sample subset differentiation.
f) To reduce the sample tube number taken for each donation


More information

Links


About the buyer

Contact name

Carole Gardner

Address

500 Northway, North Bristol Park
Filton, Bristol
BS34 7QH
England

Telephone

+441179217252

Email

carole.gardner@nhsbt.nhs.uk

Website

https://nhsbt.bravosolution.co.uk