Andrea Fitzgerald, Regional Head of Business Development at Crown Commercial Service (CCS).
In this article Andrea explains how health authorities can take advantage of Crown Commercial Service’s interoperable procurement frameworks to reduce technology integration costs, eliminate data silos, enhance cross-department collaboration, and deliver more efficient, connected healthcare services that provide better value for money.
The NHS's digital transformation journey has reached a critical junction, with interoperability emerging as the cornerstone of efficient healthcare delivery. As the NHS spends billions annually on technology and digital services and with stretched budgets, the need for seamless data exchange between systems has never been more crucial.
The interoperability challenge
Interoperability, the ability to securely exchange data and information regardless of the organisations and technology involved, is the key enabler that underpins all six missions of the Transforming for a Digital Future Digital and Data Strategy and supports several government cross-cutting priorities, including Health (Integrated Care), Security, and Net Zero,” explains Andrea Fitzgerald, Regional Head of Business Development at CCS.
All public sector organisations must address interoperability issues and challenges to ensure future sustainability, efficiency, and effective delivery of secure online public services. "However this isn't just about technology; it's about enabling better patient care, supporting integrated health services, and meeting our net zero commitments," notes Fitzgerald.
Breaking down silos
The current landscape presents several challenges. Public sector organisations, including NHS trusts, often operate with disparate systems that struggle to communicate effectively. Research conducted by CCS has identified several key barriers:
- limited understanding of interoperability requirements among decision-makers
- lack of place-based strategies for technology procurement
- legacy systems still in use create ongoing problems and extra work that build up over time, making it harder to update or fix issues
- individual organisations have less ability to convince vendors to include interoperability features that allow their systems to work well with other systems
As the UK’s largest public procurement organisation, CCS has taken significant steps to address these challenges through innovative procurement strategies that prioritise interoperability in healthcare technology.
Strategic implementation
Over the past 18 months, CCS has partnered with the Government and Industry Interoperability Group (GIIG) and Cabinet Office Policy Teams to design, develop, and draft standard “boilerplate” clauses for built and digitally built environments. They have also secured funding to undertake a customer/supplier discovery to discover the barriers and opportunities in delivering public sector interoperability.
The initiative’s core goal is to establish consistent Cabinet Office-approved standards to ensure that different systems and organisations within the public sector can seamlessly exchange data and information, regardless of the host technology.
By creating these standard clauses, CCS is making it easier for public sector organisations to use the same contract language, which helps systems work together better and reduces technical complications when sharing data between healthcare systems.
Building knowledge and expertise
Understanding that successful implementation requires more than just technical solutions, CCS has initiated several support mechanisms:
- an Interoperability Awareness Programme for buyers and managers
- a comprehensive glossary (dubbed the "Jargon Buster") to ensure consistent understanding
- a repository of relevant government policy drivers and guidance
- enhanced buying power through CCS supply chains
Benefits for NHS Trusts
Implementation of these interoperability standards through procurement offers several significant benefits for NHS organisations:
- improved collaboration between healthcare providers
- enhanced efficiency in service delivery
- strengthened resilience through standardised systems
- reduced costs through better procurement practices
- seamless data sharing capabilities
In practice, breaking down interoperability barriers means a patient's electronic health record can be securely accessed across different NHS trusts, allowing specialists to view complete medical histories without duplication or delay. For example, when a patient is transferred from a local hospital to a specialist centre, interoperability ensures that critical test results, medication records, and treatment plans follow them seamlessly, eliminating dangerous information gaps and redundant procedures.
This kind of interoperability improves safety and efficiency, allows staff to focus on care, and gives patients a better experience.
The path forward
“Using procurement as a catalyst to deliver interoperability is innovative, enabling our customers to collaborate to provide integrated services for UK citizens," Andrea notes.
Over time, the public sector will become interoperable by default through agreed-upon use of standard clauses in the procurement process. This transformation will be particularly significant for NHS trusts, enabling them to:
- share patient data securely across different systems
- integrate new technologies more effectively
- reduce duplicate data entry and associated errors
- improve patient care through better information sharing
Collective responsibility
Success of this initiative relies on collective action. As CCS emphasises, interoperability is not the responsibility of a single group or sector. Instead, it requires coordinated effort across all public sector organisations, suppliers, and stakeholders.
"By collaborating with our public sector partners and supplier marketplace, we have a genuine opportunity to define and agree on common data standards. This will enable us to implement an interoperable infrastructure across the public sector," explains Andrea.
Interoperability through procurement represents a fundamental shift in how the NHS approaches technology acquisition and implementation. By embedding these requirements at the procurement stage, CCS is helping to ensure that future NHS systems will be better integrated, more efficient, and ultimately better suited to deliver modern healthcare services.
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