NHS Genomic Medicine Service

Description

NHS Arden and Greater East Midlands Commissioning Support Unit (AGCSU), on behalf of NHS England Specialised Commissioning (referred to as the Commissioner), is undertaking a market engagement exercise to understand the current and future capacity, interest and capability of potential providers in relation to delivering services of the NHS Genomic Medicine Service.<br/>This notice is to advise prospective providers in the market of the Commissioner's intention to commission this service and to provide an opportunity to engage with and participate in a market engagement exercise.<br/>The outcome of this market engagement exercise will provide Commissioners with the detail required to help inform the commissioning strategy. <br/>The deadline for completed market engagement questionnaires is 12pm (noon), Thursday 29th May 2025. Lot 1: The NHS Genomic Medicine Service (GMS) was launched by the Commissioner in 2018 and enables patients in the NHS in England to equitably access cutting edge genomic testing and clinical services that are standardised across patient pathways for cancer and for rare and inherited disease. <br/><br/>This market engagement exercise will allow the Commissioner to explore the potential to: <br/>• Establish a ‘Single NHS GMS’ model by bringing together the existing functions of the NHS GLHs and the NHS GMS Alliances into singular functions of the NHS GMS. This is envisaged to require NHS England to contract with a Lead Provider in each existing geography of the NHS GMS (North-West, North-East and Yorkshire, South-West, East, North Thames, Central and South and South-East), and for each Lead Provider to provide the full functionality of the Single NHS GMS model. <br/>This may provide clinical and efficiency benefits including:<br/>- streamlined organisation and governance structures;<br/>- a broader scope to drive laboratory consolidation and clinical pathway efficiencies;<br/>- greater ability to ensure equity of access to genomic testing, precision medicines and clinical trials;<br/>- greater involvement in research and innovation projects across large geographies, inclusive of all providers in the care continuum; and<br/>- ability to meet the exponential demand in genomic testing applications in healthcare expected over the proposed contract term and to deliver gains to other parts/services within the NHS.<br/><br/>• Transition from the current third-party WGS delivery model to a de-centralised, delivery model, provided fully under the ‘Single NHS GMS’ model. This would cease the existing third-party sequencing services and retain the use of existing and critical analytical pipelines provided by Genomics England to the NHS GMS. This may provide benefits including:<br/>- value for money;<br/>- improvements in operational efficiency, particularly with respect to TaTs; and<br/>- opportunities to develop greater NHS expertise in the delivery of WGS services.<br/><br/>• Ultimately, deliver the future vision of the NHS GMS. The vision is for the NHS to be the first healthcare system in the world to fully embrace genomic medicine and the equitable application of genomic technologies in predictive and preventative care, in early diagnosis, earlier intervention and in access to precision medicines, inclusive of novel Advanced Medical Therapeutic Products and in the improved monitoring of disease. This would enhance access to clinical trials through integration of eligibility requirements with testing for routine care, and support genomics research, innovation and continuous diagnostic discovery within a genomics learning ecosystem for healthcare. <br/> <br/>Strong foundations have been built since 2018, but the time is now critical to build an NHS GMS that is fit for the future and able to respond to the pivotal developments on the horizon including an expected exponential expansion in: <br/>- pharmacogenomic applications in many clinical areas and use cases; <br/>- the cancer genomics offer, including through circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) and in population-based healthcare approaches such as polygenic risk scores (PRS); <br/>- the use of other ‘omic’ technologies to improve molecular profiling of disease and to drive up diagnostic outcomes and treatment options. <br/><br/>Documentation relating to this exercise including a questionnaire is available through the Atamis (Health Family) portal. To register your interest and access the questionnaire, please follow this link: https://healthfamily.force.com/s/Welcome.<br/><br/>There will also be an opportunity to attend a market engagement event via Microsoft Teams at 3pm on Thursday 22nd May 2025. If you would like to attend and participate in this event, please email anna.salt@nhs.net by noon on Wednesday 21st May 2025. All slides, questions and responses will be made available to all potential providers following this event via Atamis.<br/><br/>The project reference is C357520 and the closing date for submission of the completed questionnaire is 12pm (noon) on Thursday 29th May 2025.