Local Disaster Mortuary Services

Westminster City Council (the Authority) is seeking to procure a replacement contract for local disaster mortuary services. The current 4 year contract for local disaster mortuary services will conclude later this year and the replacement contract will ensure that the Authority is prepared in the event that its Designated Disaster Mortuary is activated. This will be a contingency contract and there is no expectation nor guarantee that this contract will be activated during its duration.

The London Resilience Partnership Mass Fatality Framework (the Framework) sets out the approach for dealing with mass fatality (multiple or large numbers of human fatalities that may be complex) incidents.

More information on the Mass Fatality Framework can be found at:

www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/fire-and-… ↗

The Framework requires local authorities to plan for the event that their coronial area Designated Disaster Mortuary is stood up in response to a disaster incident.

Westminster City Council Public Mortuary located at rear of 65 Horseferry Road, has been designated by the Home Office as a Designated Disaster Mortuary for mass fatalities in any of the boroughs within the jurisdiction of HM Coroner for Inner West London (Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea, Wandsworth and Merton).

The Contract will be for a period of 4 years with an option (at the Authority’s sole discretion) to extend for a period of 12 months. The Authority will place a contract with a single provider for the hire of facilities to augment the existing capability at its public mortuary in the event that the Designated Disaster Mortuary is stood up.

The successful tenderer will be required to have the capability to mobilise within 24-36 hours in the event that the Authority’s Designated Disaster Mortuary were to be stood up. The nature of this contract is that it cannot be predicted and could occur at any time on any day of the year.

Further information is available in the tender documentation.