Warehousing

Concepts

• warehousing services
• direct award

Location

United Kingdom:

Description

Provision of warehousing services

Total Quantity or Scope

Direct award utilising Regulation 32 (2) (C) for the provision of warehousing services.

Award Detail

Award Criteria

CPV Codes

• 63122000 - Warehousing services

Legal Justification

The Oxygen, Ventilation, Medical Devices and Clinical Consumables workstream is jointly operated by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care. Substantial items of equipment were purchased by the workstream to respond to the Covid surge and required storage. A contract was initially entered into by NHS England with Rhenus as published on contracts finder. Following changes in budget allocation and the corresponding transfer of funding to the Department of Health and Social Care it was necessary to transfer responsibility for this contract from NHS England to the Department. This warehousing storage and distribution was required as the usual routes for storage facilities were already at capacity and urgent additional capacity was required to store equipment items purchased as part of the response to Covid-19 securely and safely. Capacity requirements primarily exceeded predictions because of the lower than anticipated surge demand for equipment across the NHS due to the impact of the lockdowns in reducing Covid. This led to additional capacity being required at very short notice with no time to run a procurement process. DHSC is satisfied the tests permitting use of the Negotiated procedure without prior publication (Regulation 32(2)(c)) are met:• As far as is strictly necessary: The equipment items were already in storage secured by NHS England and the additional cost to this contract was identified as strictly necessary. This contract is limited to specific items stored until the products could either be donated to the NHS or alternative storage could be found within the usual DHSC storage premises.• There are genuine reasons for extreme urgency: Without the additional storage capacity provided by this contract the products would have to have been destroyed as the capacity did not exist for them to have been stored in appropriate conditions. Maintaining the existing storage capacity entered into by NHS England presented a genuine emergency.• The events that have led to the need for extreme urgency were unforeseeable: DHSC usual warehousing sites were at capacity following a higher than predicted storage requirement, and the requirement to transfer the contracts from NHS England was only required following a decision to provide funding for this to DHSC • It is impossible to comply with the usual timescales in the PCR: There was no capacity within the market to call off a framework agreement and no time to run an accelerated procurement under the open, restricted or competitive procedures with negotiation that would allow it to secure the extent of alternative storage within the required timescale • The situation is not attributable to the contracting authority: It has not done anything to cause or contribute to the need for extreme urgency.

Other Information

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