Special-purpose mobile containers

Tender description

Please note this is not the start of a procurement process. A separate contract notice will be published to cover this requirement. Please see II.2.4 for details of the procurement. Please note this is not the start of a procurement process. A separate Contract Notice will be published to cover this requirement. Prior to commencing a formal procurement process and to help inform our requirements, NHSBT would like to consult the market to establish the likely interest and identify innovative opportunities in delivering the following agreement. NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) have transport container systems to transport blood components (red cells, platelets and frozen material) over both long and short distances. NHSBT requires a Framework Agreement by which they can purchase further transport containers along with a maintenance contract to repair and replace their existing fleet of va-Q-tec transport containers. Suppliers will need to provide a complete and ongoing maintenance, repair and replacement service of both the inner containers and outer covers to the current specification and maintained to the standard required by NHSBT (to be defined) including quality monitoring and thermal image testing at specified intervals to satisfy regulatory requirements. The supplier will also need to provide a collection and delivery service to nominated NHSBT sites. Any proposed new solution for this agreement must be cost effective, simple, safe, conducive to the current operational requirements, space saving, low weight and have excellent temperature control performance, including any temperature stabilisation material, across a range of ambient temperatures and distances. The agreement could also be available for the other UK and Irish Blood Services from which to purchase transport containers if required. Information gained from this exercise will be used to inform production of a detailed specification and subsequent advertisement through the OJEU route. Please note that all details are subject to change. Interested organisations are requested to send an expression of interest via email to Marta.Drozdzowska@nhsbt.nhs.uk by no later than 17:00 (GMT) on 25.2.2019.