laboratory Surveillance Discovery

Tender description

Summary of the work The Discovery will identify current data flows, gaps, opportunities for integration, future needs, and define the future data requirements for infectious-disease-laboratory-reporting, integration of results into laboratory surveillance, which informs a plan to rationalise and standardise existing data flows including the development of a flexible and scalable comprehensive laboratory information standard. Expected Contract Length 12 weeks Latest start date Monday 12 September 2022 Budget Range £100,000 - £200,000 Why the Work is Being Done The UK Health Security Agency has developed a strategic transformation programme to revolutionise our information infrastructure to capitalise on emerging technologies to enhance our laboratory surveillance capability. Key components of the transformation programme are the need to rationalise, modernise and optimise our disparate information systems, making them more efficient to maintain and support, ensuring that we are making the best use of the data that we collect and hold, and explore the capabilities of our existing service suppliers and scope future requirements. This will not only enhance our surveillance capability for infectious diseases and improve our ability to respond to outbreaks, it will also reduce the burden on laboratories that provide data to the UK Health Security Agency. The current laboratory surveillance landscape is complex and crosses a range of organisational and system boundaries. There is a clear need to reduce the burden on data providers and strengthen our national surveillance capabilities by rationalising data flows, increasing the utility of our core laboratory surveillance data, and leveraging new and existing technologies. Problem to Be Solved To make the wider laboratory surveillance system more efficient, scalable and responsive to effectively meet future health challenges faced by the nation, including pandemic readiness. A project has been initiated to understand our requirements and that of our key partners (such as, but not limited to, UKHSA, NHS, reference* and private laboratories, the Devolved Administrations, UKHSA Field Services, NHS England, local authorities, Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) suppliers) and explore the capabilities of our existing service suppliers and the wider market. This is to identify technological developments and opportunities which will enhance and improve our capabilities and provide solutions for those requirements that are not being currently met and also for those that will be needed in the future, such as Point of Care results capture. An assessment is required to understand how these data flows and service capabilities align against our current systems to identify the gaps, enhancements, improvements, and rationalisation needed. This will feed into recommendations to be prioritised in the following year’s work plan. Who Are the Users The data is used by a range of users such as Health Protection Teams, epidemiologists, data modellers, analysts and senior government officials within UKHSA for the purposes of disease surveillance, clinical operations as well as providing advice to the Government. Work Already Done A pre-discovery exercise was undertaken in Autumn 2019, however, the areas covered by these products do not comprehensively cover the capabilities and flows in scope for the purposes of this discovery, and where flows and capabilities have been covered, a refresh is needed . Existing Team The UKHSA team is to be comprised of the following members: · G7 Project Manager · Data Architects Current Phase Not started Skills & Experience • Technical consultancy experience within the healthcare sector • Experience of leading data requirements gathering projects within the public sector • Experience of working with users and stakeholders at all levels in large and complex organisations • Experience in delivering evidence-based research to inform a user-centred redesign, focused on external users’ needs, end-to-end user journeys, motivations and goals • Experience of defining data requirements that meet identified user needs • Experience of data and system integration and interoperability • Experience of common healthcare taxonomies such as SNOMED CT and standards • • Demonstration of success in delivering complex Government contracts Nice to Haves • Experience of supporting healthcare organisations in devising an information systems strategy and solution architecture Work Location UK Health Security Agency , Nobel House 17 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3JR Where face-to-face interviews are required, these will take place at a range of sites. Working Arrangments Monday to Friday 8am - 6pm Remote working, with UKHSA sites visit where appropriate. Security Clearance SC Clearance and disclosure Scotland No. of Suppliers to Evaluate 7 Proposal Criteria • technical solution • approach and methodology • how the approach or solution meets user needs • estimated timeframes for the work • how they’ve identified risks and dependencies and offered approaches to manage them • Delivery outputs • Value for money • Team structure Cultural Fit Criteria • work as a team with our organisation and other suppliers • share knowledge and experience with other team members • challenge the status quo • UK Health Security Values Payment Approach Capped time and materials Assessment Method Presentation Evaluation Weighting Technical competence 55% Cultural fit 15% Price 30% Questions from Suppliers 1. UKHSA team will be holding a supplier presentation session to shed more light on the requirement and also answer suppliers immediate questions. Suppliers are invited to a presentation session on Wednesday 3rd August 2022 from 2pm to 2.45pm.Microsoft Teams meeting Join on your computer or mobile app Click here to join the meeting Meeting ID: 314 413 536 306 Passcode: RrsTjA Download Teams | Join on the webOr call in (audio only) +44 20 7660 6032,,29410619# United Kingdom, London Phone Conference ID: 294 106 19# 2. Will suppliers be expected to process classified information through their own IT systems and services or will UKHSA provide supplier staff access to source information through government IT systems and services? If suppliers will process source information through their own IT systems and services, please confirm the security classification of the information. UKHSA will supply laptops and accounts for those working on the project to work on our network to remove the need to remove any sensitive information from outside of our system. We do not expect the supplier team to require access to any systems containing patient / citizen personal identifiable data. 3. Will you support obtaining SC clearance or all staff involved will need to already have SC clearance? The SC process outside the DOS Framework takes at last 2-3 months, if not longer. Due to the timescales involved for the project we encourage suppliers to use staff that already have Security Clearance. 4. Will UKHSA entertain bids from suppliers whose staff do not yet hold SC but are willing to undergo the process? Can delivery schedules accommodate the time taken for the SC process? Suppliers need to be aware that it can take 2/3 months or longer to obtain security clearance for staff that do not already have valid SC. Our delivery timescales cannot accommodate the time needed to obtain SC. 5. Please can you clarify why a Disclosure Scotland check is required? This is required due to the sensitivity of the systems/documentation the supplier will have access to during Discovery. 6. Please can you provide a full timeline for the procurement including the dates you intend to shortlist, when you will invite suppliers to respond to Stage 2, when you intend to award etc.? Submit expression of interest 12 August Evaluate Expressions of Interest 15 - 16 August Release ITT to shortlisted suppliers 17 August ​Clarification questions (ITT) 17 – 23 August​Proposals submitted 1 September (10am)​Supplier Proposal presentations 7 September ​Award contract (Preferred supplier) 8 September​Supplier Onboarding 12 September ​​ 7. Hi there, unfortunately I could not get the link working for the Teams meeting and so joined (late I am afraid) to the call. Could you send me the recording of the briefing and the slides? Thank you. file:///C:/Users/Taiwo.Gbadebo/OneDrive%20-%20UK%20Health%20Security%20Agency/DHSC.GOV.UK/Desktop/DOS%20procurement/Discovery%20slidepack%20-%20Strengthening%20Laboratory%20Surveillance%20v2.pdf 8. Please can you clarify if Stage 1 scores will be carried over and used in the evaluation at Stage 2? No, stage 1 scores are for shortlisting only. 9. Please can you confirm how the ‘essential’ evidence-based research and user-centred design skills referenced in Q3 will feed into the scope of work as we did not foresee the need for those types of role from the summary and problem statement? This work is focused on strengthening UKHSA Surveillance capability and will need to be informed by the requirements of our Surveillance Leads. Recommendations will need to be based upon evidence based research and our user requirements to ensure we meet our primary purpose. 10. For the stage 2 evaluation, please can you confirm if you will be using the DOS default coarse marking scheme of 0-3, or a more granular scheme to allow more differentiation between suppliers ‘meeting’ and ‘exceeding’ a requirement? We will be using a more granular marking scheme which will be shared with shortlisted suppliers 11. Please can you clarify if the presentation will be separately scored as part of overall stage 2 marking? Presentation will not be scored but will be used to validate suppliers technical submissions 12. Please could you advise when the slide deck from Wednesday’s briefing will be released? Please see response 7