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- Fufilment Partner for Surge and Pandemic Response
Fufilment Partner for Surge and Pandemic Response
AI Summary
The UK Health Security Agency is seeking a fulfilment partner capable of supporting both routine and emergency distribution of diagnostic test kits as part of its Pandemic Preparedness strategy, including alignment with the UK’s 100‑Day Mission for rapid diagnostics deployment. The engagement covers the establishment of a flexible service that can operate in a low‑volume “cold state” for everyday business and quickly scale to a high‑volume “hot state” should a pandemic or surge scenario be declared. The partner will be responsible for end‑to‑end logistics, from delivering test kits to home, care, or other designated sites, to coordinating the return of used kits directly to UKHSA‑designated laboratories, thereby avoiding reverse‑logistics to the supplier’s own warehouses.
Operations will be conducted under the GCA RM6354 Courier, Distribution, Storage and Specialist Solutions Framework Lot 2b Kitting, Fulfilment and Asset Management, with the contract anticipated to be renewable. The service must maintain full regulatory compliance, data integrity, security controls and high service quality throughout both states, ensuring a smooth transition between routine activities and rapid surge response. All fulfilment operations must comply with UK health regulatory standards and maintain ISO 27001 data security credentials.
Description
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
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