Sexual Health Pathology Provision PIN

Hackney Council’s Procurement Team will shortly be undertaking a market engagement exercise in relation to sexual health pathology services. This initiative is intended to inform future commissioning decisions for sexual health services in City and Hackney, and potentially across the wider area including North East London (NEL) region and London.

Purpose of the Engagement

The purpose of this market engagement is to:

- Gather up-to-date information from pathology providers on current capabilities
and service models.

- Explore options for sexual health testing of samples from sexual health clinical
providers e.g. sexual health/ GUM clinics

- Explore options for near patient sexual health testing in clinical settings e.g.
laboratory diagnostics and near-patient testing (POCT) options such as “pathology in a box” and self-screening technologies (e.g. initial HIV reactive tests).

- Understand potential efficiencies and service improvements that might arise from testing integration across multiple Local authorities within London.

- Seek non-binding indicative pricing to support future planning and feasibility work.

We are also exploring whether to include primary care-based testing in the scope of this engagement, though no decision has been made on this yet.

Please note: This engagement is not a procurement exercise, and we are not proposing any changes to current pathology arrangements at this stage. However, we believe it is timely to explore future service models and technological advancements in this area.

Scope of Interest

The focus will be on:

- Understanding how the pathology pathway for the City and Hackney local clinics can be integrated with an external provider providing the testing functions.

- Opportunities for economies of scale from increased volumes of tests being provided

- Current licenced near-patient and rapid testing solutions

- Technical innovations for near patient and rapid testing solutions which are in development

- Logistics, result turnaround, and digital integration

- Potential benefits or limitations of wider geographical consolidation across NEL local authorities Engagement Event

We will be holding a briefing and QandA session for interested pathology providers and London-based sexual health commissioners:

Date: 23 RD , July 2025
Time: 9 -10am
Join via: https://meet.google.com/bfq-nojq-ywb

Date: 30TH , July 2025
Time: 2-3pm
Join via: https://meet.google.com/hzf-eahg-jcg

Next Steps

Following the engagement session, we expect to:

- Review responses from the market engagement questionnaire (which has been attached) to inform our strategic options and commissioning approach

Interested providers are encouraged to attend the briefing session and engage fully with this process. If you have any questions or wish to express early interest, please contact:

Abimbola Lucas
Abimbola.lucas@hackney.gov.uk