Official UK procurement notice
Market Engagement for Transdermal Capillary Blood Sampling Solutions
Authority: Department of Health & Social Care (Central government)
What is being bought
Published requirement descriptionThis market engagement aims to understand the range of venous‑equivalent transdermal capillary blood sampling devices available to support a shift of diagnostic activity into community and home settings, in line with the ambitions of the 10 Year Health Plan for England. The NHS is exploring how remote blood sampling could alleviate pressures on primary and secondary care phlebotomy services, improve access for underserved populations, and enable earlier diagnosis and management of long‑term conditions. Responses will help bring together local system needs with industry capability and inform future piloting within community pharmacy and other neighbourhood‑based models of care.
CPV: Medical equipments · Venepuncture, blood sampling devices
The lotProcurement structure
single lot · no lot value publishedPipeline intelligence · planning stage: how this market runs before the tender is published
How Department of Health & Social Care buys Medical consumables (CPV 3314), and who usually turns up
Department of Health & Social Care’s own published record, next to the published market for the same work. Frameworks and DPS are kept out: they attract a different number of bids. Whole-market view: Medical consumables (CPV 3314) →
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.
No small-firm winners recorded among this authority’s published awards in this sample.
i
How often local firms win similar work.
Winners with a registered address in the delivery region, out of awards with a known address.
Here, local means registered 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 are registered in Greater London.
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How long buyers here take to decide after bids close.
Middle value in days from the deadline to the first award notice, on competitions that published both dates.
Only decided tenders count, so slow ones still waiting are not in.
Half of these awards were announced within 29 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?
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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 bid30% / 14%
2–328% / 20%
4–626% / 22%
7+16% / 45%
How did awards compare with estimates?
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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% / 55%
Within ±2%50% / 27%
Above estimate0% / 18%
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 3314No 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 11 past lots.
A forecast, not a list of bidders.
1 bid36%
2–364%
4–60%
7+0%
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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
- Goods
- 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
- 10 Feb 2026, 15:36 GMT
- Last source update
- 10 Feb 2026, 15:36 GMT
- FTS notice number
2026/S 000-012031- Latest notice
- Preliminary market engagement notice (UK2)
- Classification (CPV)
- Delivery area
- Not published
- Official registry OCID
ocds-h6vhtk-064cf2Find a Tender
How it was run
Official notice- Submission deadline
- —
Timeline
10 Feb 2026 → 3 Mar 2026 · 3 dates- Contract starts252 days ago10 Feb 2026
- Planning notice published252 days ago10 Feb 2026, 15:36 GMT
- Market engagement230 days ago3 Mar 2026, 23:59 GMT
Background:
The 10 Year Health Plan for England (10YHP) sets out a clear ambition to shift care from hospitals into neighbourhood and community settings. Diagnostics are a critical enabler of this shift, ensuring that people can monitor long‑term conditions, receive preventative testing, or be rapidly triaged without needing to attend acute sites. Remote and community‑based blood sampling therefore represents a significant opportunity to improve patient access, support earlier diagnosis, and reduce pressures on primary and secondary care services.
This market engagement exercise aims to understand the range of venous‑equivalent transdermal capillary blood sampling devices currently available, and to explore opportunities to pilot their use in community pharmacy settings and potentially in people’s homes. This is particularly important for groups who face barriers to accessing traditional phlebotomy services, including people with learning disabilities, those with needle phobia, homeless populations, and other underserved communities.
The insights gained will help bring together local NHS needs with industry expertise, informing how remote sampling could be deployed across priority use cases such as earlier diagnosis and monitoring of long‑term conditions, prescribing support, and improved access for hard‑to‑reach populations. This notice does not constitute a call for competition; rather, it is intended to shape future approaches to remote blood sampling within the NHS.
How to participate:
Responses should be submitted using the questionnaire link provided here: forms.office.com/e/584DXfsXWL ↗
Interested organisations are invited to respond to the questions set out in Appendix 1 of the market engagement document. The deadline for responses is 12pm, 3rd March 2026.
Further guidance on how to complete the questionnaire and further information about the market engagement, please use this link: atamis-1928.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/0O000000rwim/a… ↗
There is a product specification outline indicated in the market engagement guidance document linked above.
Please send any questions relating to this market engagement to [email protected]. Please note that this inbox is for clarification questions only and should not be used for general correspondence.
Next Steps:
Following the submission deadline we would like to bring respondents together for a roundtable discussion in spring 2026. This will focus on the use cases we are exploring, opportunities to work together to further pilot the use of remote blood sampling within the NHS, and how we can ensure these devices are integrated with NHS labs.
Notice history
1 event · 1 release on Find a Tender- Preliminary market engagement notice published10 Feb 2026, 15:36 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