Case study
Pathology LIMS Continuity & Contingency Planning
Keeping pathology services running when a Managed Service procurement was challenged and critical laboratory systems were reaching end of life
Support Secured
FOR END-OF-LIFE SYSTEMS
3 Trusts
KEPT FULLY OPERATIONAL
7 → 4
OPTIONS APPRAISED TO SHORT-LIST
Zero
Service interruption
Sector
Scope
Framework
Duration
Outcome
The procurement could wait for the courts. The laboratories could not. The task was to remove the operational risk without disturbing the legal position.
an unwanted pause
A stalled procurement, a hard deadline, and laboratories that could not stop
A regional Pathology Network — three partner NHS Trusts delivering diagnostic services to a large population — had gone to market for a whole-service Managed Service Contract (MSC), with a new, unified enterprise Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) included in the outsourced provision. The procurement was intended to deliver the consolidation, resilience and efficiency envisaged by national pathology networking policy.
The award was then placed under a legal challenge, stalling the outsource and, with it, the delivery of the new LIMS. That created an acute operational exposure: at two of the three Trusts, the existing LIMS were simultaneously reaching end of life and end of contract, with vendor support due to cease on a fixed, fast-approaching deadline. A LIMS is the operational backbone of a pathology laboratory; running an unsupported one is not a viable position for a live clinical service.
The Network needed a credible contingency plan — quickly. It had to keep every Trust's laboratory services safely supported through the uncertainty, avoid pre-empting or prejudicing the contested procurement, and give the Trusts clear, costed, deliverable options they could act on with confidence.
Analyse, appraise, negotiate — a plan the Trusts could act on
We were engaged to develop the contingency plan end to end. The work combined rigorous options analysis, hard-nosed financial and contract review, and direct commercial negotiation with the system suppliers — all delivered at pace against the end-of-support deadline.
A structured options appraisal
We built and appraised a full set of mitigation options — from doing nothing through to a fresh LIMS procurement — testing each for viability against the operational deadline, cost, deliverability and the constraints created by the live challenge.
In line with Better Business Case best practice, the long-list of seven options was narrowed to a robust short-list of four suitable to carry forward into a Strategic Outline Case:
| Option | Summary | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Do nothing | Allow support and contracts to lapse and rely on the outcome of the outsource procurement. | Shortlisted (baseline) |
| Extend the incumbent LIMS across all three Trusts | Novate and directly award the in-contract LIMS used by one Trust to cover the other two. | Shortlisted |
| Upgrade the end-of-life LIMS at the two affected Trusts | Move from the unsupported version to the current supported release, with external hosting. | Shortlisted |
| New LIMS procurement or direct award at the two affected Trusts | Competitively procure, or directly award, a new LIMS for the two Trusts only. | Shortlisted |
| Further variations across the three Trusts | Full-network upgrades, migrations and a single-provider procurement across all three Trusts. | Long-list only |
Financial and contract-cost analysis
We analysed the financial and contractual position across the three Trusts — the standing LIMS contracts, their terms and expiry, and the rough-order-of-magnitude cost of each mitigation route across implementation, hosting, support and third-party project delivery.
This gave the Network a like-for-like view of what each option would cost and commit them to, and surfaced the commercial constraints — including contract term requirements and VAT treatment — that would shape any decision.
Supplier negotiation
Critically, we engaged directly with the LIMS suppliers. Through those conversations we established what each vendor could and could not commit to, and negotiated continued support for the end-of-life LIMS — closing the gap that the fixed end-of-support deadline would otherwise have opened.
This turned an immediate cliff-edge into a managed transition, and gave the Trusts the time they needed to make the right long-term decision rather than a forced one.
THE OUTCOME
Continuity safeguarded — every Trust kept running
We delivered the Trusts a clear, costed contingency plan that allowed each Trust to continue operating on the LIMS it was already using, with support secured across the risk period. Where one Trust’s system remained in contract and supported, it was left in place; where systems were reaching end of life, the negotiated support extension and a defined upgrade path removed the immediate risk.
The result: pathology services across the Network were protected from interruption, the Trusts avoided running unsupported clinical systems, and — because the plan sat alongside rather than across the contested procurement — the Network’s commercial and legal position was preserved. The short-listed options provided a ready foundation for the subsequent business case work.
CONTINUITY
All three Trusts able to continue running on their existing LIMS, with no interruption to pathology services
SUPPORT SECURED
Continued vendor support negotiated for the end-of-life systems, past the fixed end-of-support deadline
RISK REMOVED
A hard operational cliff-edge converted into a managed, time-boxed transition
DECISION-READY
A short-list of four viable, costed options to carry into a Strategic Outline Case
POSITION PROTECTED
Mitigation delivered without prejudicing the live procurement challenge
Capabilites Demonstrated
Safeguarding critical clinical services under acute time and commercial pressure.
Long-list to short-list against viability, cost, deliverability and constraint, aligned to Better Business Case practice.
Contract review, expiry and term analysis, and rough-order-of-magnitude cost modelling.
Engaging LIMS vendors directly and securing extended support for end-of-life systems.
Removing operational risk without prejudicing a live, legally challenged procurement.
Why it worked...
The engagement succeeded because it paired commercial realism with clinical urgency. Rather than default to a new procurement, we tested every option against the one thing that could not move — the end-of-support deadline — and went directly to the suppliers to change what was negotiable.
Direct supplier engagement unlocked the support extension that a purely paper-based appraisal never would have; rigorous financial and contract analysis meant the Trusts could see the true cost and commitment behind each route; and disciplined, deadline-driven delivery produced an actionable plan while there was still time to act on it.
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