Provision of Funeral Care Services for Anatomical Science Laboratory

Tender description

The Centre for Learning Anatomical Sciences (CLAS) is a department within the Faculty of Medicine in The University of Southampton. The unit is responsible for providing professionally prepared cadaveric educational resources to undergraduate medical students and postgraduate Healthcare professionals. We have a whole body donation program to support anatomy teaching so that the students are able to benefit from an enriched educational environment that not all medical schools can provide. We are licenced and regulated by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA), Human Tissue Act 2004 (HTA 2004). More information on HTA the regulations for anatomical education can be found here: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2004/30/section/1 Our donors are integral to the high standard of medical education provided by The University of Southampton and the wider medical community. CLAS has a whole donor (bequeathal) program. Our website has information about our activities (www.southampton.ac.uk/clas/). The tenderer is welcome to view the section on "Bequeathals" and download our information pack for a better understanding of our activities and programme. The operation of our donor program is central to this tender. CLAS is licensed for this activity by the Human Tissue Authority (HTA). The requirements are for the supplier to liaise with CLAS at the point of acceptance and to arrange to meet the next-of-kin/executer in order to accurately process the correct paperwork (details in section 4) and collect the donor from their place of rest (e.g. hospital mortuary, funeral directors, private address) and convey the donor to UHS mortuary. Here they will liaise with the Anatomical Sciences Laboratory (ASL) Management to check the donor and paperwork. If the collection is to take place out of business hours, overnight cold storage by the tenderer will be required. Therefore, the supplier would need refrigeration facilities and adequate storage. In addition, after 3 years, the donor will be collected from UHS mortuary, with the necessary paperwork, by the supplier for cremation. The supplier will need to supply the coffin on collection from UHS mortuary. ASL Management will be present to meet the supplier and check out the donor. The supplier will then arrange the cremation and inform the next-of-kin/executor as required. Please see full requirements within the Appendix 1 Specification contained in File 2 of our tender documentation.