The NHS was slammed last week over poor procurement practice when new data revealed a lack of coordination and sheer disparity in contracts and pricing for the same products. In many ways there is little surprise here. The NHS is the UK’s largest employer and probably has the longest shopping list ranging from medical supplies to energy and catering equipment. It has a major procurement efficiency job on its hands – to get hundreds of thousands of people buying goods and services at competitive prices. At the moment there is far too much choice, preference and variety exacerbated by silo based approaches to contracts and purchasing. With GPs soon likely to take responsibility for much procurement away from trusts, adding granularity to the process, things have the potential to get worse, not better.

Three critical areas of focus could alleviate much of the NHS procurement pains and save billions. These areas are visibility, accountability and usability.

Visibility of what the NHS as a whole is spending on different products and services is the first step. NHS Shared Business Services’ data goes some way but only covers one third of the sector. We need to have the full picture so that this information can be properly analysed and decisions can be made about how to approach controlled sourcing and spending. The only viable way to do this is by channel all procurement through web based purchasing platforms that can support individual NHS organisations but easily allow information to be collected and analysed by category, region or area of health provision. Nothing can officially be saved until full knowledge and evidence exists of what is spent today.

NHS procurement may be in disorder but the sector has really good procurement people within. These people need to be empowered with the accountability to improve spending, by focusing on the areas where choice is simply not required and large scale contacts could drive savings very easily. There is no reason at all why a trust’s procurement team that has achieved significant savings in particular categories couldn’t be given broader regional or even national responsibility for those specific contracts. Again, the use of a web based procurement platform would join up the health sector and enable the distribution of category management responsibilities across the country.

Literally hundreds of thousands of people make purchase requisitions across the NHS. Many are busy people for whom ordering goods and services is not their primary role. To increase financial and operational efficiency the NHS needs to find a common way for any authorised person to buy on contract, given a reasonable but not extensive choice. Buying off contract via intuitive procurement systems that are built to mimic a consumer shopping experience and offer user reviews, re-order shortcuts, product ratings and also automate the entire purchasing and supply process would make this possible.

The government must tread carefully with its plans to change the dynamics NHS purchasing and supply. If they take a lead from forward thinking trusts like County Durham and Darlington, they could find the template for a highly effective national approach.

Devolving responsibility to GPs could be a good thing, but without a common framework and technical infrastructure to gain visibility of spend and saving potential, unlock the valuable procurement skills residing at the NHS coalface and standardise under one simple approach to buying, the health of NHS purchasing could deteriorate rather than improve.

Daniel Ball, Director