United Kingdom-London: Health services

'The Department of Health is looking to award a contract to an organisation to carry out both the promotion of gamete donation and the running of the voluntary contact register. The key policy objectives are: (i) The support and promotion of gamete donation to help address a significant shortage of sperm and egg donors for people seeking infertility treatment and (ii) Enabling a voluntary contact register to continue to operate for pre 1991 donor conceived people and their donors. The service provider will be expected to provide the following outputs: Provide support, high quality information and advice to gamete donors and recipients, both potential and actual, on issues relating to infertility treatment involving the use of donated eggs, sperm and embryos; Liaise with clinics, professionals and professional bodies to improve the donor experience, which will encourage the recruitment and retention of egg, sperm and embryo donors; this can be kite marked through the development of 'donor centres of excellence'; Manage the Voluntary Contact Register linking donors, people conceived by donation and their siblings, with a view to increasing the number of registrants and thus increase the chances of matching, and provide information and signposting as appropriate; Work with media, social networking and other relevant parties to raise public awareness of the shortage of sperm, egg and embryo in an effort to alleviate, and ultimately eradicate that shortage. The contracting authority/Department of health reserves the right to discontinue the tendering process at any time and not award the contract. This procurement is being procured as a Part B Service.'