EMIS OpenSAFELY Redevelopment · UK public procurement notice

OpenSAFELY was established during the COVID pandemic to provide access to researchers to general practice data in a way that maintains the privacy of patient data. In June 2023 the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) requested that NHS England operate the service. It is a requirement of OpenSAFELY that there is a dedicated instance set up in the GP suppliers' data centres to query the practice data. To enable the OpenSAFELY to access the records of patients in these practices a dedicated instance is required in the Optum datacentre (being a major GP system supplier).

This new contract award will be for the development of an OpenSAFELY environment to open access and interrogate pseudonymised GP data that is only stored by the Optum GP system.

It is justified under Section 41 (1) (a) and paragraph 6 of Schedule 5 of the Procurement Act 2023 due to an absence of competition for technical reasons, only a particular supplier can supply the goods, services or works required.