Midlands trusts go out for a LIMS

Three Midlands acute trusts are in the middle of procuring a laboratory information management system that could cost up to £7m.

The Coventry and Warwickshire Pathology Services Network was established in May 2008 and provides cellular pathology, microbiology and blood sciences to George Eliot Hospital NHS Trust, South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust.

The tender is led by University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire, as the trust is responsible for hosting the service, which provides specific services such as clinical biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, blood transfusion and phlebotomy.

Suppliers will be expected to supply the software, hardware and interfaces for the system as well as providing training, implementation and ongoing support for the system during 13-year contract.

The tender states that pathology services are being encouraged to “form networks” and there is potential for the Coventry and Warwickshire Pathology Services Network “to form a cluster and join with other pathology services locally in the future.”

This means that there is potential that the LIMS services contract might be extended to form part of “the central and east cluster” with the organisation. According to the tender, further information has been provided to suppliers in the pre-qualification questionnaire.

The contract has been valued between £3.5m and £7m, dependent on the number of other pathology services that decide to join the network.

Interested bidders must demonstrate to the organisation that they have a public liability insurance of £10m, employers liability insurance of a similar figure and professional indemnity insurance of £5m.

Speaking to eHealth Insider, Duncan Robinson, associate director of IT at South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust, described the tender as “huge”, adding that the organisations involved were currently in the middle of a process which is likely to last two years.