23.09.16
Trusts told to join ‘coalition of the willing’ on standardised procurement
NHS Improvement (NHSI) has told trusts to follow standardised specifications on procuring certain key supplies in order to deliver savings.
In a letter to all NHS trust chief executives, seen by NHE, NHSI’s executive director of operational productivity Jeremy Marlow said that NHS Supply Chain and the NHS Business Services Authority will source the products on behalf of providers.
The list of 12 products, including nitrile exam gloves, medical pulp urinals and blunt filter needles, makes up around £100m of trust annual expenditure.
NHSI hopes to cut that amount by up to 25%, although it notes that this depends on “market circumstances”.
Marlow, who is on secondment from the Department of Health, said: “For this to work, NHS Supply Chain needs to purchase on behalf of all providers so it is vital that you commit your volumes and don’t undermine the initiative by purchasing outside the contracts.”
He added that NHSI wants the standardised procurement to be “a coalition of the willing” instead of “immediately relying on more formal contractual or regulatory mechanisms to mandate compliance with this programme”.
He said that the suppliers will be selected in January 2017, along with a new tranche of products for standardised procurement.
By 2019, standardised procurement will cover as much as £5bn worth of products, with the aim of delivering the £700m of procurement savings identified in the Carter Review.
Marlow also said that NHSI will use the purchasing price index benchmark (PPIB) to help identify non-compliant trusts.
All 136 non-specialist acute trusts have now submitted data, covering £8.4bn of expenditure.
In a recent interview with NHE, Adam Sewell-Jones, the NHS Improvement director of improvement, said that trusts should consider more joint purchasing in order to help tackle NHS funding shortfalls.
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