Servicing and Maintenance of the Queen's Medical Centre Swisslog Pneumatic Air Tube System

The contract is for the servicing and maintenance of the Swisslog pneumatic air tube system at the Queen's Medical Centre (the Services) to ensure the pneumatic tube system is subject to routine planned maintenance, mitigating the risk of downtime (e.g. due to a fault) and facilitate call outs in the event of such faults.

The pneumatic air tube system enables the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (The Trust) to meet its needs as a provider of healthcare services. For example, connecting wards, surgical rooms and departments with the hospital's laboratory and central pharmacy, shortening delivery times of samples, medicines and any associated documents - minimizing the requirement for manual handling.

The Trust's in situ pneumatic air tube system at the Queen's Medical Centre is manufactured by Swisslog.

The Trust requires a Supplier for provision of both planned and reactive servicing and maintenance of the in situ pneumatic air tube system at the Queen's Medical Centre.

The Trust's objectives are to maintain a high level of reliability and availability of its systems by ensuring sufficient provision of both planned preventative (PPM) and reactive maintenance, including, but not limited to, call outs and call backs/breakdowns maintained at agreed performance levels, whilst ensuring value for money.

It is understood the existing Swisslog pneumatic tube system in situ at the Queen's Medical Centre is a closed protocol system and only SWL UK Ltd are authorised by Swisslog to service, maintain and repair these systems in the UK. Therefore competition is absent for technical reasons on these grounds.

To substantiate this, a Prior Information Notice (PIN) notice was published as a Request for Information (RFI) to understand the market's capability to provide the Services.

The response received to the RFI indicated the pneumatic system at the Queen's Medical Centre is closed protocol. Therefore, the Trust has awarded the contract based on relevant grounds under regulation 32 (Use of negotiated procedure without prior publication) of the Public Contract Regulations 2015.

The contract term is 24 months, with the option to extend for a further 24 months.