The Government have drawn up plans to vastly improve NHS supply chains in a landmark amendment to the Health and Care Bill.
The change, which was tabled last Thursday on the 21st of April, aims to crack down on the use of goods and services in the NHS that are tainted by modern slavery and human trafficking.
The amendment will look to ensure that the NHS, which is the biggest public procurer in the country, has the power to enforce tougher regulations and ultimately set out the steps that they should be taking to assess the level of risk associated with individual suppliers, and the basis on which they should exclude them from a tendering process.
Health and Social Care Secretary, Sajid Javid said: “I want this to be a turning point in the UK’s mission to eradicate slavery and human trafficking in supply chains around the globe. As the biggest public procurer in the country, the NHS is well placed to spearhead this work.”
The official wording of the amendment is as follows: “The Secretary of State must by regulations make provision for the purposes of ensuring that procurement of all goods and services for the purposes of the health service in England avoids modern slavery.”
The purview of the Bill includes genocide, human trafficking and slave labour.
The Bill will go ahead into the next stage of Commons Consideration of Lords Amendments and will be heard this week.
The Bill itself can be found here, with more updates available here.
