Provision of Public Health Microbiology Services (PHMS) for London Region

Public Health England (PHE) is looking to commission a service Provider who will undertake the routine public health specimen testing required for the London region and also to provide capability and capacity to investigate outbreaks at short notice, including the ability to roll out new tests during a public health incident.

The advertised opportunity covers the following \"public health microbiology\" functions, many of which are required on a 24/7 basis. These functions include but are not limited to:

• Testing of clinical samples for a wide range of pathogens including specialist referred tests which are not performed in all NHS laboratories, which do not necessarily have to be sent to a reference laboratory (such as molecular diagnostic tests, mycology and serology tests).
• Participation in regional and national sentinel and enhanced surveillance programmes and laboratory reporting of clinically significant infections to the Health Protection Teams (HPT).
• Specialist laboratory support, particularly for the investigation of outbreaks and serious incidents, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and H5N1 influenza; look-back exercises; and in support of national incident response.
• Provision of sufficient testing capacity working with the PHE laboratory network to deal with large outbreaks sustained over extended periods
• Implementation of new tests or methodologies to support PHE locally / nationally.
• Liaising with the PHE London Clinical and Scientific staff to support an effective Public Health Microbiology Service (PHMS).
• Processing specialist public health referred samples for NHS laboratories.
• Work as part of a wider laboratory network within PHE.
• Participate in gathering, collation and analysis of data on behalf of PHE.
• Undertake development and testing of clinical and public health related Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and the field evaluation of new diagnostics.
• Contribute to specialised training programmes for healthcare professionals in public health microbiology and communicable disease control.
• Undertake projects in collaboration with the local HPTs.
• Additional work (identification or typing) where not undertaken by a partner reference laboratory, for example flu typing.

If you are interested in participating in this opportunity please login or register to PHE's eSourcing Platform: https://phe.bravosolution.co.uk to gain access to tender documents.