Serco wins Testing Centres contract rebid
Serco has been awarded a contract by the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to continue providing support services to Covid-19 regional, local and mobile test centres in England and Northern Ireland.
Image courtesy Serco
The contract, awarded after a competitive process run by the DHSC and the Crown Commercial Service, is for 12 months with an option to extend for a further six months.
The value of the award could be up to £322 million, although the actual amount could differ materially from this as the contract is designed to be flexible, matching services to the demand for testing over the coming months.
Serco will provide test site operations, asset administration support, cleaning and security services at around 20% of sites in England and Northern Ireland, including a mixture of drive-through and walk-in testing centres, as well as mobile testing units. The new contract will complete its transition process in July this year. Our expectation for the contribution from testing centres is unchanged from the guidance we gave in our latest trading update issued on 14th June.
Commenting on the award, Rupert Soames, Group Chief Executive of Serco said: “We are proud of the part we have played in building and operating the UK’s highly successful Covid-19 testing infrastructure.
From a standing start in March 2020, NHS Test & Trace has grown a network of regional, local and mobile sites which have delivered over 18.5 million individual tests, an average of 51,000 tests a day. We are delighted that the DHSC has selected us to continue to support them in providing these services for at least the next twelve months.”