Test and Trace Service Evaluation for Covid-19 Testing

Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is seeking Contract Research Organisation (CRO) support in managing and undertaking service evaluations. This will include evaluation initiation and delivery, site and data management, monitoring and analysis report writing in order to support UK's COVID-19 testing capabilities. Service evaluations examine the applicability of possible services. They are designed and conducted to define or judge current services and provide a view to what standards these services achieve, as referenced by the NHS Health Research Authority (HRA). The objective of DHSC service evaluations is to generate high-quality, reliable data on COVID-19 testing services (including technologies, delivery channels and methods). As a guide, each evaluation is run at c. 5-10 sites for c. 4-8 weeks and multiple evaluations can be run in parallel. Depending on the delivery model, each site will have 2-4 members of the evaluation team on the ground. However, this can differ and can be subject to change at short notice, typically driven by the NHS T&T strategic priorities and the epidemiology of the pandemic. While it is likely that the majority of service evaluations will be delivered via those models, given the unprecedented pace of the programme it is necessary to ensure there is flexibility in place to allow for new delivery models to be established in line with NHS T&T priorities a short notice.