The Health and Occupation Reporting network (THOR)

Description

Award of a contract without prior publication of a call for competition in the cases listed below. The procurement falls outside the scope of application of the regulations Explanation: Regulation 32 exempt: 32(2)(b)(ii) whereby competition is absent for technical reasons. HSE has funded data collection under THOR for many years, it is the only UK-wide surveillance system collecting medically diagnosed case reports of work-related ill health. HSE does not have comparable capability, and moving to another supplier is not deemed feasible at this time. During the extension period, it is intended that a full tender exercise will be completed to revise how the data collection is carried out. Lot 1: The Health and Occupation Reporting network (THOR) is a voluntary surveillance scheme for work-related ill health. Under this network, specialist doctors are asked to systematically report all new cases of work-related ill health that they see in their clinics. Reports are collated and analysed by a multidisciplinary team at the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Manchester University. The THOR network currently consists of 2 specialist reporting schemes and one for general practitioners. The specialist schemes are SWORD (based on reports from hospital consultants specialising in respiratory disease) and EPIDERM (based on reports from consultant dermatologists). SWORD is HSE's only data source for incidence and causes of occupational respiratory disease. Without it, HSE will be unable to report progress against the reducing ill health strategic objectives for occupational lung disease, such as work-related asthma, COPD or silicosis. The data provides information on causation, including new and emerging issues as well as on incidence and trends. The data have been used to evaluate intervention strategies within different sectors, providing sufficient detail and numbers to allow longitudinal assessment of progress over time. THOR's strengths lie in its ability to identify cases through clinical diagnoses by specialist physicians, gather detailed occupational histories for exposure assessment, and establish work attributions. The network of specialist physicians from across the UK provides representative data for all sectors and regions. Also, case reports are analysed to identify possible sentinel cases to assess new and emerging risks. This is particularly important as it may provide intelligence around new industries where respiratory ill health is starting to present or point to potential new clusters of respiratory ill-health. The THOR team also provides a data request service providing data on specific agents or sectors.