Official UK procurement notice
Fit-Testing Solutions - Early Market Engagement
Authority: Department of Health & Social Care (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionThe Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is looking to engage stakeholders to explore how the UK can strengthen capacity for respirator fit testing across health and adult social care, namely for “Filtering Facepiece Class 3” (FFP3) masks. FFP3 masks offer high levels of protection, removing at least 99% of airborne particles such as viruses, toxic dusts, and aerosols. To ensure this level of protection is achieved, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) requires in-person fit testing by a trained tester.
There’s an ongoing shortage of respirator fit-testing capacity across the health and care sector. During business as usual, adult social care and the NHS can have limited need for tight-fitting respirators. However, changes in demand (such as during a pandemic) could significantly constrain access to appropriate protection without sufficient fit-testing capability. DHSC is therefore seeking input from stakeholders with relevant experience and expertise to identify challenges and potential solutions.
This engagement is seeking input from a wide range of stakeholders that have direct or indirect involvement in delivering fit testing across health and social care, with a focus on longer-term, innovative approaches to improving fit-testing capacity, including digital or artificial intelligence (AI) solutions. In a separate engagement exercise, DHSC is planning to engage exclusively with fit-testing providers, specifically to gain further understanding of the current fit-testing market and landscape, and implications for associated surge capacity to delivering fit testing in a future pandemic. Thus, this other exercise will aim to deliver increased resilience and preparedness for a future pandemic, if required, in the near term, while longer-term initiatives are defined and pursued.
This could be a significant opportunity to contribute towards developing a solution for fit testing across health and social care, helping to address a need that is currently not being met. In England, there were a total of 1.71 million workforce posts in adult social care in 2024/25 (plus unpaid carers and personal assistants) and a further 1.5 million in the NHS (August 2025).
CPV: Disposable non-chemical medical consumables and haematological consumables · Health and social work services · Machines and apparatus for testing and measuring · Medical software development services · Medical software package · Miscellaneous medical devices and products · Occupational clothing, special workwear and accessories
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedLot #1Planned
Pipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Department of Health & Social Care buys Programming services of packaged software products (CPV 7221), and who usually turns up
Department of Health & Social Care’s published record next to the market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are left out: they draw different bid counts. Whole-market view: Programming services of packaged software products (CPV 7221) →
How the contest usually goes
Winner shares use published awards; bid and price charts use contested lots.
i
How often small and medium firms win.
Share of awards where the winner’s size is known.
The counts under this question show how many awards have a known supplier size.
Small firms have won here. Neither number says whether you qualify; it describes who has been winning.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Local means the winner is registered in the region where that award was delivered. The market figure counts awards delivered in Greater London (authority’s region).
A local branch does not count if the registered address is elsewhere.
Most of this buyer’s recorded winners were registered outside the region where that award was delivered.
i
How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the bid deadline to the award date, on competitions that published both.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards have an award date within 101 days of the bid deadline.
i
How often work is awarded with no recorded rival.
Direct awards and tenders where every published lot count shows one bid.
Both shares are minimums: some awards have no bid count.
Thin markets produce this too; it is not proof of a tailored specification.
Direct awards or one recorded bid are common here. Check the route before spending time on a bid.
How many bids did past lots attract?
i
How many bids past lots received.
Each colour is a bid-count range. Only competed lots with a published count are included.
Past bids do not predict this tender.
1 bid20% / 0%
2–340% / 25%
4–620% / 25%
7+20% / 50%
How did awards compare with estimates?
i
Where winning prices landed against estimates.
Each colour shows awards below, close to or above the published estimate, one lot at a time.
Past prices are a guide, not a bid price.
Below estimate50% / 50%
Within ±2%50% / 50%
Above estimate0% / 0%
Assess each lot i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
i
What past awards tell you about each lot.
See the forecast, this buyer’s earlier suppliers and firms with relevant wins.
No supplier is confirmed as a bidder.
Open a lot for its forecast, this buyer’s previous supplier and possible competitors, from published award history, not a bid list
Lot #1CPV 7221No real estimate
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How many bids this lot may attract.
The forecast uses similar past competitions. The bar shows either that forecast or past bid counts; the line below says which.
Each lot shows its own forecast based on its own category; forecasts for different lots of the same notice are not comparative. The bar shows 111 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid11%
2–333%
4–629%
7+27%
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Where the award price may land.
The forecast uses similar awards and the buyer’s estimate. The band covers the middle half of likely prices.
No comparable awards for this lot yet.
A statistical guide from past awards, not a price to bid.
Who has supplied this buyer on similar work? i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
i
Who has done similar work for this buyer.
Past contracts are matched by buyer, title and type of work.
A past supplier may not bid again.
No earlier contract of this buyer matches this lot on the published record.
Who could compete for this lot? i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
i
Who could compete for this lot?
Firms with relevant past wins. On a framework, we show firms on that agreement.
None is confirmed as a bidder.
Candidate suppliers for this notice have not been worked out yet, so this is not a verdict that nobody fits.
About this data
- Source. Official UK public procurement notices (Find a Tender), reused under the Open Government Licence v3.0. New notices arrive through the day; the figures are rebuilt nightly.
- Two views, kept apart. The authority’s own track record and the wider market for the same kind of work sit side by side and are never mixed. Where the local picture is too thin, a figure widens to a broader market and says which one it used.
- Forecasts are labelled. The price forecast and its range, possible competitors and the earlier-work matches are our estimates from past awards: not published facts, not win chances and not price advice. Official notices do not say who is bidding.
- Every figure shows what it rests on. Not every notice publishes a bid count, a value or a delivery region, so each figure carries the number of records behind it, and one built on few records is marked as such. The on a figure explains it; the counting rules are in the methodology. Spotted something wrong? Tell us.
Procedure terms & legal framework
From the official record- Legal basis
- UKPGA · 2023/54 Procurement Act 2023
- Procurement category
- Services
- Notice status
- Planned procurement
- Procurement threshold
- Unspecified in notice
- Regulatory regime
- Standard
- Commercial structure
- Stand-alone contract (no framework)
- Competition type
- Competitive procedure
- GPA / WTO covered
- Unspecified in notice
- Recurring procurement
- Unspecified in notice
- First published
- 3 Feb 2026, 14:36 GMT
- Last source update
- 3 Feb 2026, 14:36 GMT
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-009517- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-061582Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
3 Feb 2026 → 2 Mar 2026 · 3 dates- Contract starts267 days ago3 Feb 2026
- Planning notice published266 days ago3 Feb 2026, 14:36 GMT
- Market engagement239 days ago2 Mar 2026, 23:59 GMT
For this engagement, DHSC will be holding three roundtable discussions, scheduled for:
- Tuesday 24 February 2026, 10am-12pm
- Wednesday 25 February 2026, 11am-1pm
- Thursday 26 February 2026, 1pm-3pm
The roundtables will discuss:
- the current status and problems with fit testing within the health and adult social care sector,
- the solutions that exist within industry or elsewhere to effectively fit test, and
- the potential development of a technological solution, such as a solution involving digital or AI tools, to improve access to fit testing within health and social care.
DHSC is keen to hear your ideas and feedback, particularly on the feasibility of innovative solutions, the practicalities, and the potential for procuring services/products. We want this to be an open discussion, allowing you to tell us what the potential solutions are.
Please register your interest for a roundtable using this form:
forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx ↗
The deadline to register interest is 11:59 pm on Tuesday 17 February 2026.
DHSC welcomes interest from:
- Adult social care providers
- NHS organisations (primary, secondary, community, and social care)
- Local authorities
- Manufacturers or sole distributors of respirators, especially FFP3 masks
- Manufacturers or sole distributors of quantitative fit testing machines
- Manufacturers or sole distributors of qualitative fit testing kits
- Fit testing providers, trainers, or individual fit testers
- Relevant industry bodies and trade associations
- Regulatory or accreditation bodies
- Other users of respirators and fit testing services
- Solution designers (including digital/AI innovators)
DHSC may adjust the number or timing of roundtables depending on demand. If interest exceeds capacity (25 participants per roundtable), DHSC may not be able to invite all eligible stakeholders. In this case, DHSC will select roundtable participants based on the below criteria:
- Ensuring a balanced mix of stakeholder groups for each roundtable
- Ensuring a balanced representation across regions.
Alongside this, all stakeholders are encouraged to complete an accompanying survey. All stakeholders are invited to complete this survey, regardless of whether they are attending a roundtable. All individual responses will be kept confidential within DHSC and used solely to gather insights on challenges and potential solutions in fit-testing capacity. Only aggregated and anonymised insights may be shared wider.
Complete the survey here: forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx ↗
Survey deadline: 11:59 pm, Monday 2 March 2026
(This engagement is neither a procurement exercise nor a call for competition. DHSC does not commit to any specific action at this stage. The roundtables and survey are for information gathering only. Further engagement may follow as required.)
For any questions about this opportunity, please contact [email protected].
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published3 Feb 2026, 14:36 GMTUK2
Commercial outcome & contract awards
Pipeline notice- Awards (0)
- No award published
- Contracts (0)
- No contract published
- Bid statistics
- No aggregate bid statistics published
Contracting authority & participating public bodies
Official documents & specifications (1)
Official links; attachments are not copiedNotices published for this procedure
- Preliminary market engagement notice Preliminary market engagement notice on Find a Tender