SURVEY OF INDUSTRY & ACADEMIA LABORATORY CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL SURGE ANALYSIS CAPABILITY

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is the Lead Government Department in England for co-ordinating decontamination and remediation of incident sites following attacks and major industrial accidents involving hazardous chemical and biological materials. Laboratory facilities are used for analysing environmental samples to inform decontamination and remediation decisions. Until these samples are analysed, contaminated areas would not be declared safe and habitable.

Defra wishes to undertake a market survey to understand the current availability of UK private sector and academic laboratories capable of handling the environmental sample analysis that may be necessary for chemical and biological incident recovery. This will inform Defra's contingency planning and assessment of the potential to increase 'surge' sample analysis capacity in this area.

You are invited to take part in the market survey on behalf of your laboratory. Please complete Part A (chemical analysis capability) and/or Part B (biological analysis capability) of the attached questionnaire as appropriate by entering your responses onto the document and returning the completed form in Microsoft Word format to CBRNResearch@defra.gov.uk no later than 17:00 on Friday 11th October 2024.

PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A MARKET ENGAGEMENT SURVEY FOR INFORMATION PURPOSES ONLY.