Public Health England

Chemical and Enviromental Hazards, Centre For Radiation

Didcot

OX11 0RQ

UK

Telephone: +44 2083277847

E-mail: Anwar.Hossain@phe.gov.uk

NUTS: UK

Internet address(es)

Main address: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisation/public-health-england

II.1.1) Title

II.1.2) Main CPV code

71351611

II.1.3) Type of contract

Services

II.1.4) Short description

The aim is to develop a data linkage prototype via an Applications Programming Interface (API) between Public Health England and the Met Office to enable continuous access to Met Office data for ingestion in PHE Environmental Public Health Surveillance System (EPHSS). It is envisaged that this prototype, and the tools developed throughout this project, will be transitioned to an operational service to PHE. The exact details of such service will be defined, and agreed, while working on the prototype. Free, and uninterrupted, data access will be granted in order to enable a seamless transition from the prototype stages to its operational implementation.

This project will benefit from leveraging resources from the Met Office Public API project, the Informatics Lab, Scientific Consultancy.

II.1.6) Information about lots

This contract is divided into lots: No

II.1.7) Total value of the procurement

Value excluding VAT: 32 726.00  GBP

IV.1.1) Type of procedure

Negotiated procedure without prior call for competition

Justification for selected award procedure:

The works, supplies or services can be provided only by a particular economic operator for the following reason: absence of competition for technical reasons

Explanation:

This project is aimed at delivering new surveillance capabilities for Public Health England (PHE) because it will enable specialist-users within PHE gain continuous access to Met Office’s weather databases through Applications Programming Interface (API) facilitated by PHE’s Environmental Public Health Surveillance System (EPHSS). These new API interfaces will provide unique opportunities for quicker, enhanced and more dynamic, near-real-time access and use of available related environmental public health data domiciled in different agencies for integrated public health surveillance, research and other public health purposes.

No such integrated interface currently exists in this field and the Met Office appear to hold the most comprehensive data-set of observation data from its unrivalled network of data sources. In addition, software tools that have been developed by the Met Office to make weather data more easily linkable to other data, particularly health datasets, and therefore more useful for epidemiology and public health purpose are not available from alternative sources.

Met Office will provide Public Health England with an API for the following use cases:

1) Observational Times series:

The Met Office will develop a prototype API underpinned by weather and climate observations [Met Office Integrated Data Archive (MIDAS) data] for Points and Areas (grids) covering a spatial range of global data, with a temporal range comprising the last 50 years, for all available parameters. This API will enable PHE and their users to request data based on the Medical and Environmental Data Mash-up Infrastructure User Interface (MEDMI UI) specification, covering both Point- and Area-based time series;

2) Real-time weather data:

The Met Office will provide raw atmospheric data and near term observation, which are stand-alone and not linked to health data. This is for public health surveillance and research purposes within PHE and its partnering agencies. Data such as Arrival Time Differencing (light detection/thunderstorm), temperature, wind speed, wind direction, RH, precipitation sunshine and Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment model outputs — Need for gridded, historical, single site observation data with hourly frequency. Parameters to be determined but to include wind direction, precipitation, and crucially, Pasquill Stability Category.

IV.1.8) Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: Yes

VI.4.1) Review body

VI.4.4) Service from which information about the review procedure may be obtained