The Walton Centre is the only hospital trust in the UK dedicated to providing comprehensive neurology, neurosurgery, spinal and pain management services.

The Neuroscience Laboratories within The Walton Centre offer a specialist repertoire of Neurobiochemistry, Neuroimmunology and Neuropathology tests.

In our Neurobiochemistry department we are in need of a small, automated clinical chemistry analyser as specified below.

Test repertoire The analyser must have fully validated methods for the following analytes over a clinically relevant concentration range: • Serum albumin • Serum total protein • Serum/plasma glucose • Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) total protein • CSF glucose • CSF lactate If all of these tests are not available as standard reagents, an alternative approach must be given.

For example, there may be the option of "open channels" that allow other reagents to be used.

Assay traceability and proven good external quality assurance (EQA) performance would need to be demonstrated.

The system must also be able to provide a haemolysis, icteric, lipaemic (HIL) index.

Workload Example annual workload figures are given below.

The figures supplied are the number of requests received in the financial year April 2016 - March 2017 and include EQA samples but not internal quality controls (iQC).

Test Annual workload Serum albumin 984 Serum total protein 1078 Serum/plasma glucose 1044 CSF total protein 986 CSF glucose 984 CSF lactate 263 This gives an approximate total annual workload of 5339 tests and an approximate daily workload of 20 tests.

Other requirements • A bench top analyser (as opposed to floor standing) with a small footprint would be preferred. • Due to the relatively low workload, long on-board reagent stability is preferred to minimise wastage. • Minimal daily/weekly/monthly maintenance • Able to accept a wide range of different sample tubes • Small dead volume • Easy to use and intuitive software for reagent management, scheduled maintenance, calibrations, sample flags etc Interfacing The system would need to have a bi-directional interface to our laboratory information management system (LIMS).

A barcode reader should read the specimen number and use this to obtain the ordered tests from the LIMS.

Once analysis is complete, the results should be returned to the LIMS with any cautionary flags or alerts.

The department currently uses TD-Synergy and TD Workstation supplied by Technidata as its LIMS provider.

If you are able to supply an analyser that meets this specification please could you provide indicative costs for equipment, reagents, consumables and servicing.

The Trust is open to a managed service contract/reagent rental option.

Please also indicate what the water requirements of the analyser are and whether a water system would be supplied or whether the Trust would need to source this separately.