A reminder to all members that the Pathology Managed Service Contracts Call for Evidence closes 5th September. BIVDA has pressed government on this issue for a long time. This, therefore, provides a crucial opportunity to help DHSC with the development of policy guidance in this area.
We are encouraged by member engagement so far, following two webinars with Head of Market Access Beth Loudon, and urge as many members as possible to submit a response.
To prompt members further, BIVDA Chief Executive has sent the following letter to all Chief Executives at BIVDA member companies:
I am writing to you to highlight this Pathology Managed Service Call for Evidence for your attention and to request that you encourage your commercial teams to submit a strategic response to this once in a generation opportunity to improve the procurement landscape in England for Pathology Services.
The improvements will also serve to extend professional best practice across the UK to improve contracting in Wales and Scotland too. Northern Ireland doesn’t utilise these types of contracts in the same way, but some best practice may be applied there too.
As a valued member of BIVDA, I am sure that you are aware of the work undertaken by BIVDA over many years to influence and improve market access, competition and adoption of innovation across the NHS through our working groups.
Towards the end of last year, I wrote to David Lawson at the Department of Health raising business continuity and market failure risks due to the contracting methodology being applied and explaining that these contracts exclude innovation from the outset. Many companies do not have the opportunity to access the sites and customers to assess their requirements due to being “locked out”. Specifications favour incumbents, who are disincentivised to innovate and/or adopt new developments due to the risk profiles. The contracts themselves do not consider the need for change and improvement. This process serves as a significant blocker to innovation, adoption, and growth – all key priorities for the government.
We highlighted Industry’s concern about the time and resources required to submit the tenders, in timeframes that are not reflective of the complexity but also the risk of managing them after award and the impact on SME’s who cannot resource the opportunity or meet the performance requirements and the fact that companies will have no access to these sites for up to 20 years.
Our proposed solution was diversification. Smaller, more agile managed service contracts delivering the best outcomes for the NHS. Supporting innovation; allowing the NHS to respond to technical developments; and ensure that industry is supported to access the NHS with all the benefits a thriving life sciences sector delivers. This also includes standardising metrics and KPI’s and enabling businesses to access their customers directly.
As a result of this, David Lawson and his team worked with BIVDA’s Beth Loudon, Director Market Access and Operations and BIVDA members to evaluate this methodology; likely including members of your teams throughout the process to discuss and understand a better way for Pathology Services to be procured. This Call for Evidence has been developed by Jim Morris, Head of Strategic Policy and Initiatives and BIVDA to seek industry input for solutions to address the challenges with a view to developing a combination of policy, guidance and where appropriate legislation.
This is an opportunity that requires long term strategic thinking and should avoid specific examples and short-term operational gains. It is BIVDA’s view that we won’t get an opportunity like this again during our professional careers.
My request to you is to ask your teams to submit a strong and strategic response to the consultation but not simply to submit a standard response provided by BIVDA. I attach a Managed Service Briefing Document that you can use to formulate your own response, and assure you that Beth Loudon -Email and I Helen Dent – Email can support you and provide guidance and examples that you might want to use. Please just get in touch.
The Pathology Managed Service Call for Evidence was launched on 13th June 2025 and it could be that your teams may already have started a response and be aware of it though our Market Access and Procurement Working Party. Your organisation may have submitted already. The consultation closes on 5th September 2025.
I am writing to you personally to ensure that as the senior leader in your organisation you are aware and have the opportunity for strategic input into this critical submission which will impact the future of procurement for pathology for many years to come.
The potential for this activity is to demonstrate how the impacts affect everyone in this sector, but to show that there is a better, fairer and more competitive way to contract that helps everyone including your customers. The solution will benefit Primary Contractors, large sub-contractors, SME’s and innovators in different ways, from better economic profitability and choice for own branded products with less risk and cost within a global corporate infrastructure to better access to customers and laboratories for relationships and research and development, to niche and esoteric product specialities reaching patients and the ability for innovators to see a return for their investors and adoption of innovation.
BIVDA is working with the Pathology Alliance and the Professions collaboratively and they have also been involved with the Department’s strategic review. They will be submitting a response to this. Please can you also encourage your teams to discuss this with their customers to develop an aligned response from the NHS and Industry.
As the pathology networks fully evolve there is a high risk that there will be:
– 29 (or maybe less) networks
– A Single managed service contract per network
– Contract lengths of 10-20 years covering >90% Pathology
This means that there could be less opportunities for companies operating in the UK, with the pressure on Primary contractors having to decide which contractors to use in their bids further removing contact from customers and an increase in commodity-based procurement principles. Access to customers and R&D will be further reduced, stifling innovation priorities from elsewhere in the system.
This will then mean that procurement skills decrease further as less activity and experience is required meaning that R&D Investment further up the chain reduces in the UK as there is no return on the UK market for investors. The IVD sector will retract as all companies reduce resources due to no opportunity, no clinical and scientific support required and no need for sales and support teams.
Ultimately, this means that there will be less choice for NHS to provide patients with the best technology and treatments, higher prices for NHS as competition shrinks and risk increases for those who are contracting and a significantly higher risk of supply shortages as number of suppliers active in the UK decreases.
This Pathology Managed Service Call for Evidence is an opportunity to prevent this and reverse some of the early impacts that the sector is already experiencing.
This request requires as many people from across our sector to respond and make your voices heard, as this alignment and benefit for so many different people in the market is a unique and powerful position to make a substantial and impactful improvement to our sector and our customers and patients.
