Sterilisation, disinfection and hygiene devices

Tender description

To identify commercial partners to develop sterile services at Royal Surrey County Hospital. This Prior Information Notice is to invite potential commercial partners to engage in a dialogue with the Healthcare Partners Ltd (HPL) on behalf of Royal Surrey County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, to review the future development of decontamination and sterilisation services for surgical instruments and devices from an on-site facility. Background: Current service provision is in the form of: (i) a contractual joint venture for sterile services; and (ii) an in house facility for endoscope decontamination within the endoscopy department. The existing trend in demand for surgical instrument reprocessing is increasing by 40 % and includes specialised robotic surgery facilities. The endoscopy service is also expected to increase to meet government targets for bowel cancer screening. Subsequently additional endoscopy procedure rooms are required which would be facilitated by the decontamination service joining the sterile service department. The Trust will be seeking suitable and capable suppliers of sterile services to develop a long term partnership to provide sterilisation services for the Trust, with endoscopy decontamination included as a core provision, the option to offer services to other external customers should also be considered. The current on-site facility includes clean steam provision, conventional washers/disinfectors, ultrasonic irrigation with parametric controlled flow, conventional steam and gas plasma sterilisation. This equipment is in addition to the endoscopy washer / disinfectors and storage cabinets. All this equipment together with the facility will require replacement / refurbishment in both the short and long term and there is also the opportunity to expand the facility to proof for future growth. The Trust is willing to consider a range of options with regard to the provision of a sterile service with a strong preference for the facility to be located on the RSCH site however a location within the immediate vicinity of the hospital could be considered particularly if this was a more cost effective solution. Interested potential bidders are invited to speak to the HPL in advance of the tender process to discuss current thinking and options by speaking to Martin Bleazard, Head of Operations at: m.bleazard@nhs.net and telephone 01483 571122 ex 3033. An expression of interest in this market engagement exercise will not automatically entitle involvement in any future procurement exercise. The subsequent procurement will be advertised separately and all organisations wanting to participate will need to respond to the procurement advertisement when published. Please note that this is not a Selection Questionnaire (SQ), we are using the functionality within the procurement portal to communicate with interested parties. A decision has yet to be taken as to which procedure will be used for this procurement but given the nature of the requirement and the expectation that this will be fulfilled by some type or joint venture between Healthcare Partners Ltd and the successful bidder. It is likely that either the Competitive procedure with negotiation or Competitive dialogue procedure will be used.