Blood Glucose and Ketone Monitoring Service

Serco is an international service company, and has been selected as the NHS' strategic partner for the delivery of support services through Serco ASP. Serco ASP also provides services in partnership with the NHS and other health and social care organisations in a range of primary and community settings.

For this opportunity Serco ASP is acting as the agent for the following contracting authorities:

• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust
• Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) provides integrated community and mental health, learning difficulties and social care services to over 891,000 people across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The Trust provides old peoples’ healthcare and adult community services coordinated around the needs of the patients.

The blood glucose and ketone monitoring system will be used by the integrated neighbourhood community teams along with community hospitals and units. Through the use of a hand held system, it will enable monitoring of people with diabetes to assess diabetes control of blood glucose in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes as well as assessing blood ketones in those with just type 1 diabetes.

Cambridgeshire Community Services NHS Trust's (CCS) vision is to provide high quality care to the diverse communities they serve to make their lives better. CCS provides a range of children’s services to children, young people and families across Cambridgeshire.
Luton Community Unit is part of Cambridge Community Services NHS Trust. A range of community based services are provided, and most of these services are nurse led. Community nurses administer a substantial number of insulin injections, several times a day to housebound patients with Type 2 Diabetes and occasionally Type 1.

To enable them to administer insulin safely they require a blood glucose meter that is hand held, easy to use and records blood glucose results accurately, with the facility of a memory. As blood glucose results are used to adjust insulin by Diabetes Specialist Nurses and GPs, the meter needs to be quality assured daily and receive external quality control monthly for accuracy. Meters are also used by community school nurses and adult specialist nurses.

CPFT and CCS Luton require three separate services. These services will be separated by Lot 1, Lot 2, and Lot 3.

For Lot 1, CPFT and CCS Luton require two separate systems for blood glucose and ketone testing suitable for use by Health Care Professionals in a community setting. They would therefore require a meter for blood glucose testing and a separate meter for testing blood ketones.

For Lot 2, CPFT require an integrated system that is suitable for both blood glucose and blood ketone testing which is to be used by Health Care Professionals in a community setting. CPFT would therefore require a meter which has one or more component parts combining to form a unitary whole.

For Lot 3, CPFT and CCS Luton require an external quality assurance service that will test the meters on a monthly basis.

Suppliers can bid on all three Lots, a combination of two Lots or just a singular Lot. As such, the Lots may be awarded to three separate companies / organisations, a combination of two companies / organisations or a singular company / organisation.

Depending on the evaluation of bids, CPFT and CCS Luton reserve the right to not award a Lot if it is deemed economically disadvantageous.

All expression of interests to participate in this opportunity and all information regarding this opportunity will be through the Supplying to the NHS tendering portal which can be found at https://procontract.due-north.com/SupplierPreLoginHome/ (Registration is free of charge)

Estimated Timescales:
Expression of Interest: 05.02.2016 – 07.03.2016
Pre Qualification Questionnaire(PQQ): 05.02.2016 – 14.03.2016
Invitation To Tender (ITT) — Estimated 21.03.2016 – 15.04.2016
Contract Start date — 01.07.2016

The duration of the contract(s) is initially 36 months (from the contract start date) with two options to extend for a further 12 months each.

The time limits for receipt of expressions of interest, via the Supplying to the NHS tendering portal (https://procontract.due-north.com/SupplierPreLoginHome/) (registration is free of charge) are before the closing date of 4pm on 07.03.2016. This is a fixed and firm date.

The time limits for receipt of the PQQ submissions, via the Supplying to the NHS tendering portal (https://procontract.due-north.com/SupplierPreLoginHome/) (registration is free of charge) are before the closing date of 4pm on 14.03.2016. This is a fixed and firm date.

Pre Qualification Questionnaire (PQQ): It is envisaged that the top 10 highest ranked compliant scoring Pre Qualification Questionnaire submissions will be shortlisted for the Invitation To Tender Stage for each of the Lots.

The Invitation To Tender documents will be available on the portal after your Expression of Interest has been accepted. Suppliers are encouraged to review the proposed Invitation To Tender documents prior to completing a Pre-Qualification Questionnaire in order to ensure that they are capable of fulfilling the contract requirement(s).