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Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (CUH) seeks to engage with potential suppliers via this Preliminary Market Engagement (PME) exercise to seek feedback and information to inform the forthcoming procurement of a comprehensive Digital Pathology Solution for the Department of Histopathology and Diagnostic Cytology and Haemato-oncology departments at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge Biomedical Campus. CUH is part of the Mid-East-5 Pathology Network, which also includes North West Anglia NHS Foundation Trust and Bedfordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The network is interested in how closer collaboration over Histopathology can be achieved and are considering potential for jointly approaching this procurement to enable a closer working model to be achieved through common digital technology and interoperability.
CUH is a Comprehensive Cancer Centre (CCC) and one of the largest NHS teaching hospital trusts in England. The Department processes approximately over 2000 slides per working day, including H&E, immunohistochemistry (IHC), in-situ hybridisation (ISH), special stains and an 8% annual growth rate projected. The laboratory is working towards running a fully automated pre-analytical and microtomy workflow including the Inpeco Flexpath system; Dainippon Seiki AT-192 trimmer and AS-410M sectioner distributed by Axlab UK, IHC platforms (Leica BOND-III,Leica BOND-PRIME and Ventana BenchMark Ultra Plus), HE staining equipment (Leica Spectra ST and CV), and Epic Beaker as its LIMS.
The current digital pathology system includes the Philips SG300, Objective imaging Glissando and the Philips Image management System.
The anticipated requirements include:
| Lot | Title | Value |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lot 1 | — |
(a) intra-NHS sharing across pathology services enabling rapid second opinion and regional MDT collaboration, without requiring bilateral configuration with each receiving organisation;
(b) external sharing to national and international second-opinion centres, academic institutions and clinical trial sponsors via DICOM or encrypted time-limited links without VPN access;
(c) receipt and viewing of inbound images from external senders. All transfers must be encrypted with access audit logging and link expiry controls. Suppliers providing or connecting to national NHS digital pathology image exchange programmes are encouraged to describe this capability and the interoperability standards supported;
(d) de-identified image sharing with annotation for research purposes;
(e) Ability to audit access of shared images/ cases
The Authority welcomes responses from all supplier types including individual vendors and consortia, established major providers of digital technology solutions, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and niche innovators. Suppliers may respond to the full scope or to individual component areas. The Authority does not pre-determine the delivery model and is open to end-to-end solutions, modular proposals, and solutions that leverage established national NHS infrastructure, provided all requirements set out in this notice are demonstrably met.
The Authority wishes to engage the market on the following specific points: