NHS Scotland Bowel Screening FIT Kits, Distribution and Analysers

Tenders were invited from suitably qualified Contractors who wished to participate in a competition for the appointment of a single vendor agreement as part of the delivery of the Scottish Bowel Screening Programme. The agreement is for 5 years for the supply and distribution of a Quantitative Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) kit per individual invitation, to be analysed on an appropriate Automated Test Platform. This was referred to in the documents as the Complete FIT Solution. All bowel screening participant communication is carried out by letter. The requirements were therefore to provide a FIT solution that also takes into consideration both mailing of the test out to the participant and returning by mail back in to the Laboratory. The FIT will be issued by post (via a third party outsource mail fulfilment supplier) and returned by post to the Laboratory for testing. Each FIT will be required to be easily packaged to Royal Mail standards and needs to contain the following information: - Information personal to the addressee consisting of – the NHS Community Health Index (CHI) Number (10 digits), Forename, Surname, unique FIT identifier number and barcode, the word Date (of sampling) and space for this to be written on the FIT by the participant. All of these details should be clearly readable when the returned test is booked into the Laboratory. - Information on how to do the test will also be required within the letter/packaging. - A return prepaid packaging solution is required to be enclosed or be part of the packaging and this must meet Royal Mail standards. - This information can either be enclosed in an accompanying letter or displayed within the mail packaging solution. The Centre will manage the distribution of all correspondence via a third party mail fulfilment company. It was vital that the information within the kit number /barcode is translatable via an interface into the Scottish Bowel Screening IT system (BoSS).