Corrigendum-Fulfilment Partner for Surge and Pandemic Response

AI Summary

The UK Health Security Agency is seeking a fulfilment partner capable of providing a flexible, scalable logistics service to support surge and pandemic response activities as part of the country’s pandemic preparedness strategy and the 100‑Days Mission. The partner will operate a dual‑mode capability, maintaining a low‑volume, “cold state” routine operation during normal circumstances while rapidly re‑configuring into a high‑volume, “hot state” demanding rapid dispatch of hundreds of thousands of test kits per day during declared emergencies. The service must incorporate full regulatory compliance, data integrity, security controls and consistent service quality across both operational modes.

In practice, the supplier will be responsible for outbound delivery of diagnostic test kits to end users or organisational endpoints such as care homes, as well as arranging the pickup of returned kits by designated UKHSA laboratories, thereby ensuring a seamless end‑to‑end supply chain. The engagement is to be conducted under the GCA RM6354 Courier, Distribution, Storage and Specialist Solutions Framework, Lot 2b Kitting, Fulfilment and Asset Management, and represents an exploratory pre‑market exercise without a current procurement commitment. The fulfilment partner must be able to handle massive dispatch volumes while maintaining compliance with regulatory and security standards.

Description

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is inviting suppliers to participate in this pre-market engagement exercise to explore options for a fulfilment partner for surge and pandemic response. This engagement aims to share UKHSA’s current thinking, gather feedback from the market regarding the proposed specification, contract and tender evaluation methodology to inform the final approvals for the procurement strategy.
UKHSA is exploring the feasibility of establishing a flexible fulfilment service, which can be rapidly surged when required to support surge or pandemic response activity to provide greater resilience and flexibility across use cases as part of UKHSA's Pandemic Preparedness strategy and support the UK’s contribution to the 100 Days Mission, which targets deployment of diagnostics within 100 days of identifying a new pandemic threat.
Outside of incidents it is envisaged the service would operate as a low-volume capability a “cold state”, supporting routine activity during business-as-usual operations, this could include deliveries to care homes or other organisational and private settings. When activated by the Authority in defined circumstances, such as a pandemic declaration or surge response activation, the service would be required to scale rapidly and mobilise at pace into a “hot state”. This is likely to require a high volume of dispatches in the hundreds of thousands per day, while maintaining full regulatory compliance, data integrity, security controls, and service quality.
For certain test kits, the Supplier would be required to support outbound delivery to the end user or organisational endpoint (e.g. homes, care settings or other designated locations). Once end users have taken their samples, they would return the test kits directly to laboratories designated by UKHSA for testing, rather than sending them back to the Supplier’s warehouse or fulfilment centres, the fulfilment partner will be responsible for making these arrangements in consultation with UKHSA.
The intended route to market is via the GCA RM6354 Courier, Distribution, Storage and Specialist Solutions Framework Lot 2b Kitting, Fulfilment and Asset Management.
Please note, the indicative contract value below is for a “cold state” running of the contract and a hot state contract value will be many multiples of this.
This engagement is exploratory and does not represent a commitment to procure at this stage.

Estimated date of publication of contract notice: 2026-09-01T23:59:59+01:00
Contract location: UK
Amendments:
Other additional information: Noticed a typo in 'fulfilment' in the title

Engagement process description
A virtual engagement session will be held on 23 July 2026 at 10-11am. The purpose of this session is to present UKHSA’s objectives, gather feedback from suppliers and outline the procurement approach.
Suppliers should register their interest by emailing evie.bradbury@ukhsa.gov.uk with company details.

Lot: 1
This contract is subject to renewal: Yes

Languages in which tenders or requests to participate may be submitted: En

Details

Status:
Forecast
Sectors:
64120000 - Courier services
60000000 - Transport services (excl. Waste transport)
79920000 - Packaging and related services
Place of origin:
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Places of performance:
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Deadline:
Nov 16, 2026, 12:00 AM
Contract duration:
Start date: 16 November 2026, End date: 15 November 2029
Contract type:
Services
Publication date:
Jul 6, 2026
Created date:
Jul 7, 2026
Update date:
Oct 21, 2026

Stored documents

Member-only information

Original URL:

Member-only information
Contracting Entities
Member-only information