Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS)

Concepts

• medical information systems
• laboratory information management system
• bristol
• lims
• laboratory disciplines
• trust’s primary patient management systems
• clinical information system
• provision of a single laboratory information management system
• information systems
• critical clinical it solution

Location

Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and Bristol/Bath Area:

Description

The Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) is a critical clinical IT solution deployed within pathology services that is required to be able to effectively manage requests,samples, and reports. The solution is supplied via a fully managed service to include software, off-site hosting and associated support & maintenance services. The LIMS is required to support all laboratory disciplines and must have the ability to support pathology services for multiple health organisations over multiple sites which currently includes North Bristol NHS Trust, University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust, Infection Sciences at the Royal United Hospital in Bath as well as Public Health England.

Total Quantity or Scope

The contract is for the provision of a single Laboratory Information Management System(LIMS) supplied via a fully managed off site hosted service to incorporate the supply of software, hosting and associated support & maintenance services. The LIMS is required to support within a single database the pathology services delivered to multiple hospitals across North Bristol NHS Trust and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust. In addition, the LIMS is required to support InfectionSciences at the Royal United Hospital in Bath as well as support end users at Public Health England. The solution must be scalable to accommodate changes in workload and any future expansion of services/sites. The solution must be able to create a single patient database fedby the multiple Trust’s primary patient management systems and have the capability to support all laboratory disciplines including Newborn Screening and Tissue Typing. The solution must support all required interfaces for downstream systems, analyser connections and multiple blood tracking solutions in place across the four hospitals.

Award Detail

CPV Codes

• 48814000 - Medical information systems
• 48180000 - Medical software package
• 48814400 - Clinical information system
• 48000000 - Software package and information systems

Legal Justification

It is critical to ensure effective continuation of the LIMS service given current operational demands on pathology services, North Bristol NHS Trust and University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust wider digitisation programme and covid pressures. In addition, the IT infrastructure environment of the legacy solution must be addressed to ensure the solution can continue to meet pathology service needs as well as be compatible for on-going support and maintenance requirements. Given the level of investment already undertaken in time, resource and finances and the significant level of technical effort that would be required to deploy a replacement solution there is a need to ensure potential issues of being able to establish a stable and fully integrated LIMS solution are fully mitigated as well as avoiding disruption to pathology and digital services which could potentially introduce operational and technical risks. In addition, the level of complexity of the solution that is required to be able to meet the essential needs of pathology services across multiple NHS organisations as well as operating within the confines of a single database requires significant expertise in the complexity of NHS pathology network requirements and a supplier that has capacity to deliver a fully managed service to the scale needed with no software development implications for a wide spectrum of pathology disciplines. It is necessary to extend the duration of the existing contract for a period of up to 7 years to enable essential changes to be made to the IT infrastructure environment within the timescales required, mitigate operational and technical risks and provide effective continuation of services which cannot be met by existing market place providers. Further, given the significant level of time, resource and finance that would be required to replace the solution the extended period will also provide sufficient time to undertake a replacement of a critical key system should an alternative supplier be identified at a later stage with the relevant expertise and capacity required to meet the needs of multiple health organisations over multiple sites within a single system.

Other Information

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