St James’s Hospital in Dublin plans to award a €2.4 million two-year contract for cancer genetic testing services.
St James’s is the national referral centre for adult inherited cancer genetics. Patients are referred from general practitioners, regional hospitals and cancer centres for cancer genetic counselling, risk assessment, and genetic testing.
According to tender documents, the testing provider would be responsible for subcontracting a courier service to track the sending and receipt of genetic testing kits; processing of the sample for cancer genetic testing; bioinformatics and data analysis and result outcome; and confidentiality of information submitted to the online portal to order the test. The documents state that urgent testing results will be required within two weeks.
In 2022, some 1,040 patients were seen by the cancer genetic service. The same year, the service performed 602 cancer genetic diagnostic tests and 164 predictive tests.
A spokesperson for St James’s Hospital told the Medical Independent that evaluation of tender submissions was taking place, but declined to comment on future plans.
As of early 2025, more than 2,600 adults nationally were awaiting a genetics outpatient appointment, with more than 750 waiting more than 18 months. More than 70 children were awaiting an appointment, shows data from the National Treatment Purchase Fund.
According to tender documents, cancer genetic testing occurs after pre-test counselling and consent and remote testing with saliva, blood or buccal samples sent to a patient’s address, or collected on site and couriered to a testing provider.
The National Genetics and Genomics Office was set up in 2023 to help establish genetic and genomic services within routine care delivery and reduce service fragmentation. According to the National Strategy for Accelerating Genetic and Genomic Medicine in Ireland: “A coordinated national genetics and genomics service is required to optimise patient outcomes and patient/citizen experience while advancing research, innovation, and discovery in this fast-moving field.”
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