Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust Commercial Procurement Services (CPS) invites applications to join a Dynamic Purchasing System (DPS) for decontamination and sterilisation services of reusable surgical and medical instruments, devices and equipment.

Further details are provided in the invitation to participate in a DPS accompanying this Contract Notice which can be viewed at www.nhssourcing.co.uk

The overall objective of the services is to secure the provision of modern and efficient decontamination and sterilisation services which achieve the national policy for compliance with all of the current and future quality and legislative standards, at a competitive and cost effective price, enabling NHS Organisations to service their current and planned/unplanned growth requirements in a timely manner. The services will include the comprehensive provision of sterile services and other decontamination services including the cleaning of reusable surgical/medical instruments/devices and equipment within facilities operating to all current relevant medical device directives, Health Technical Memoranda, health building Notes and recognised standards used in acute care settings and as may be amended updated, enhanced or superseded at any time during the period of validity of the Dynamic Purchasing System from time to time or to any equivalents to the above that are applicable to Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

The services will include but not be limited to:

— collection of contaminated surgical and/or medical instruments and/or devices and/or equipment from an NHS Organisation site,

— secure transportation of contaminated surgical and/or medical instruments and/or devices and/or equipment to an appropriate decontamination and sterilisation facility,

— decontamination and sterilisation of contaminated surgical and/or medical instruments and/or devices and/or equipment to an appropriate standard for the safe reuse by an NHS Organisation,

— secure transportation of decontaminated and sterilised surgical and/or medical instruments and/or devices and/or equipment to the originating NHS Organisation site,

— full end-to-end tracking and tracing of surgical and/or medical instruments and/or devices and/or equipment that shall: track and trace all instruments/devices i.e. instrument tray sets containing multiple instruments, and individual supplementary instruments/devices,

— a dedicated contact with responsibility to manage operational issues for all aspects for delivery of the Services to an NHS Organisation.

The services and any additional standards will be defined in the contract specification for each call-off Contract under this DPS agreement, by each participating NHS Organisation in accordance with the call for competition procedure, which is in Section 4 of the template DPS Agreement.