Managed Services Contract – Medical Biochemistry & Immunology

Tender Process timing

• To ensure that the appropriate level of detail and due diligence is applied to any future tender it is has been established that a five-year extension to the current contract would be necessary for the following reasons;
• The need to provide a safe sustainable Clinical service during the tender process. The Clinical risk of not having an operational Medical Biochemistry and Immunology service within Cardiff and Vale is significant as the laboratory is involved in 70% of all Clinical decisions – around 90% of the work undertaken within the department requires a 2 hour turnaround from time of receipt to reporting of the result which can only be achieved with an onsite service supported by hardware and the LIMS system.
• 12 months to write and refine the tender specification – there is currently no specification written other than the one issued around 2007 – this requires time to ensure all key points are covered
• 24-36 Months to go through the tender process including viewing potential options open to us to ensure an informed choice is made.
• 12-24 Months Implementation – this would include phasing out the current equipment following validation and verification of any new platforms - some assays may require significant patient rebase lining which means dual running to evaluate any change in results on a personal patient basis - during this period a contract will still be required with Abbott diagnostics.
• Tender processes – there is evidence from other sites within the UK including legal precedence that show the above is a realistic timeline.

End of life-cycle equipment

• The current equipment provided under the managed service contract with Abbott including Alinity analysers and associated automation (sample tracking and movement system) is 8 years old and needs replacing. A five-year contract could achieve this cost effectively, but any lesser period would place huge financial pressures on the HB in duplicative costs and may not be achievable. In the short term, not changing the aging equipment now and attempting to run it for a further 2-3 years to undertake a procurement exercise (notwithstanding the technical/resource limitations) would create a significant patient risk as the analysers down time which is likely to increase, will have a detrimental effect on the department’s ability to turnaround the majority of work within the required 2 hours’ time window, this places patients at risk by not being able provide laboratory results to make a clinical decision. Accordingly, the indication is that a period of less than five years is not economically viable to replace the current system.
• There is also an indication that the automation is nearing its end of life, this is evidenced by the increased down time of individual components on the tracking system and time taken to obtain parts, life expectancy of this equipment is around 8 years although that is not a hard end point as with the LIMS, rather it is an unknown risk that could materialise or escalate in severity over time. Abbott Diagnostics are no longer contracting their track system to Inpeco and going forward would not be able to hold the risk under the MSC due to this contracting change.
• As indicated 8 years is the usual life cycle of both analytical and tracking systems, although the equipment is still fully functional down time will increase and for the track will take longer to obtain, this increased downtime will seriously affect our ability to meet the 2 hours’ time window for the return clinical results required to treat patients